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Relative Rank Theory: A Computational Model of Preferences, Choices, Attitudes and Opinions

Objective

People differ in their preferences and attitudes. But how do these preferences and attitudes relate to the choices people make and the opinions they express? People’s behaviour is ubiquitously and systematically context-dependent, but cognitive and economic models of choice have failed to provide accounts that satisfactorily reconcile the context-dependence of choice with the existence of stable individual differences. In social psychology, the related person-situation debate remains largely uninformed by current cognitive models. We propose to develop a new and integrative computational model which reconceptualises the relation between preferences, choices, attitudes, and expressed opinions. We suggest that people’s choices and expressed opinions cannot be understood in terms of stable underlying preferences and attitudes in the way that conventional models assume. We propose a radically different alternative, which brings insights from social psychology to bear on cognitive models of economic judgement and choice by distinguishing between underlying preferences and expressed preferences. Underlying preferences are stable characteristics of people, but do not inform everyday choices directly because people have no conscious access to the strength of their underlying preferences. Expressed preferences in contrast are learned, context-dependent, and do inform everyday choices directly. Bringing insights from cognitive models to social context effects, we implement a parallel distinction between underlying and expressed attitudes and quantify the concepts of authenticity preference and social extremeness aversion. Using agent-based modelling to link individual-level and network-level effects, we model effects of both choice context and social context within an integrative framework, and aim to account for individual choice as well as social network-level phenomena such as social norm influences, polarisation, and social contagion effects.
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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2017-ADG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 992 127,00
Address
KIRBY CORNER ROAD UNIVERSITY HOUSE
CV4 8UW COVENTRY
United Kingdom

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Region
West Midlands (England) West Midlands Coventry
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 992 127,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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