An information theory account of preference prediction accuracy

Pollmann, Monique M. H.; Scheibehenne, Benjamin

doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2014.10.002

Professional article

English

An information theory account of preference prediction accuracy

Contributors

Pollmann, Monique M. H.; Scheibehenne, Benjamin

Published in

Journal of consumer psychology, vol. 25, no. 2, p. 286-295

Publication date

2015

Abstract

Knowledge about other people's preferences is essential for successful social interactions, but what exactly are the driving factors that determine how well we can predict the likes and dislikes of people around us? To investigate the accuracy of couples' preference predictions we outline and empirically test three hypotheses: The positive valence hypothesis predicts that predictions for likes are more accurate than for dislikes. The negative valence hypothesis predicts the opposite, namely that dislikes are predicted more accurately than dislikes. The base rate hypothesis predicts that preference knowledge critically depends on the base rates of likes and dislikes within a given domain. In a series of studies we show that predicting likes over dislikes has relatively little effect compared with base rates. That is, accuracy is greater for relatively rare events regardless of whether they are liked or disliked. Our findings further suggest that when predicting preferences, people seem to rely on a combination of general, stereotypical knowledge of common preferences on the one hand and specific, idiosyncratic knowledge of rare preferences on the other.

Keywords

Preferences
Prediction accuracy
Positivity effect
Negativity effect
Base rate

UNIGE affiliation entities

Faculté d'économie et de management / Institute of Management

Citation (ISO format)

POLLMANN, Monique M. H., SCHEIBEHENNE, Benjamin. An information theory account of preference prediction accuracy. In: Journal of consumer psychology, 2015, vol. 25, n° 2, p. 286–295. doi: 10.1016/j.jcps.2014.10.002

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

PID : unige:75823
DOI : 10.1016/j.jcps.2014.10.002

Additional URL for this publication

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057740814001016

Journal ISSN

1057-7408

958views

775downloads

Creation

22/09/2015 20:44:00

First validation

22/09/2015 20:44:00

Update

14/03/2023 23:40:31

Status update

14/03/2023 23:40:31

Last indexation

31/10/2024 01:27:44

An information theory account of preference prediction accuracy

Contributors

Published in

Publication date

Abstract

Keywords

UNIGE affiliation entities

Citation (ISO format)

Main files (1)

Identifiers

Additional URL for this publication

Journal ISSN

Technical informations

Creation

First validation

Update

Status update

Last indexation