Positive and negative preferences in human mate selection

This paper focuses on preferences for specific characteristics in a potential partner using data from 1993 to 1999 provided by a French marriage bureau. We perform an econometric analysis of the various traits either sought or rejected in a potential partner, respectively by men and women. Our results are consistent with investment in marriage. On the one hand, men tend to reject vulgar and unfaithful women, meaning that they are likely to suffer serious fitness costs from infidelity. On the other hand, women dread meeting potential partners who are alcoholic, selfish or violent.     

Loss of mate—A third individuation process

Summary and Conclusions The concept of a third individuation process following the loss of a mate focuses on the structural psychological dynamics which may impede or foster a successful adaptation to such a loss. When adequate individuation has been impaired during adolescence, marriage may serve as an ego support which impedes further development. With the death of the mate, there exists the possibility of a third chance at individuation. This understanding of the underlying dynamics suggests a treatment focus with an emphasis upon structural rather than behavioral change. The bereaved mate must be helped to dissolve the tie to the internalized infantile object and so gain a more advanced level of separation-individuation.While this paper has focused on the loss of a mate through death, the concepts would seem to be equally applicable for some divorcees. For some, divorce may represent a self-initiated third individuation process.This paper was presented at the Spring 1975 Educational Institute of the New York Society for Clinical Social Work.     

Freedom of choice

Inspired by the discussion of different functions of freedom of choice (instrumental versus intrinsic value) by Sen and others and an axiomatic characterization of an intrinsic aspect by Pattanaik and Xu, we compare unique axiomatic characterizations of three classes of rankings of opportunity sets in terms of freedom of choice: First, we investigate the simple cardinality-based ranking proposed by Pattanaik and Xu and a generalization of this. Secondly, we propose a new criterion that is based on the comparison of the ranges of sets of options. Thirdly, we solve possibly occuring conflicts between these two criteria.I am indebted to Wulf Gaertner, Yongsheng Xu, Walter Bossert, the participants of the Economic Theory Workshop of the University of Rochester, and anonymous referees for helpful discussions and comments. Financial support by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is gratefully acknowledged.     

Responsible Choice: the choice between no choice

This paper explores the way 'choice' is constituted by professional and support staff in naturally-occurring-talk within an Australian disability service. That choice is really the choice you have when you are not having a choice, a situation indicative of the wider social milieu and the disablism found in society. Membership Categorisation Analysis is used to highlight the moral reasoning which occurs in the everyday, based upon disablist norms. In light of this, critical reflection upon contemporary bioethics is used to suggest that choice as an expression of autonomy is not only contextual, but far more than the hedonistic approach adopted by Western disability services.     

Sexual-moral attitudes, love styles, and mate selection

Students at a southwestern university were surveyed to test the interrelations of three constructs: sexual-moral attitudes, love styles, and attraction criteria. Following the procedures of the National Health and Social Life Survey, from which the sexual-moral attitude items were obtained, we conducted a cluster analysis to create attitudinal groupings. We obtained four clusters representing various nuances of liberalism and conservatism. When compared on love styles, the clusters differed primarily on ludus and pragma. Not only did some of the liberal clusters differ from some of the conservative ones on love styles, but there were also some differences within liberalism and within conservatism. Cluster differences also emerged on the attraction criteria.     

The mutual sequential mate search model under nonhomogenous preferences

This paper extends the Todd and Miller’s mutual sequential mate search model with homogenous preferences to the case of non-homogenous preferences. Our simulations show that the size of heterogeneity in the preferences affects the performance rankings -as well as the absolute success levels- of the mate search heuristics in the model with respect to both mating likelihood and mating stability. In particular, we find that mate search heuristics that are more egalitarian in setting aspirations become more successful under sufficiently heterogenous preferences.     

Fuzzy choice functions

The R-greatest and maximal sets of standard choice theory are extended to fuzzy R-greatest and fuzzy maximal sets. Unlike the precise counterparts of these concepts, these two sets do not in general coincide when preferences are reflexive and connected. A stronger than usual version of connectedness under which the two sets are equal is provided. The concept of a fuzzy choice function is introduced and conditions under which a fuzzy choice function may be rationalized as a fuzzy R-greatest or a fuzzy maximal set are discussed. Rationalizability with transitive and weakly transitive fuzzy preference relations is also considered.We are indebted to Professor P. K. Pattanaik for his comments on an earlier version of this paper. We also wish to acknowledge comments made by an anonymous referee from which this paper has benefited greatly. The usual caveat about errors applies.     

Assent-maximizing social choice

We take a decision theoretic approach to the classic social choice problem, using data on the frequency of choice problems to compute social choice functions. We define a family of social choice rules that depend on the population’s preferences and on the probability distribution over the sets of feasible alternatives that the society will face. Our methods generalize the well-known Kemeny Rule. In the Kemeny Rule, it is known a priori that the subset of feasible alternatives will be a pair. We define a distinct social choice function for each distribution over the feasible subsets. Our rules can be interpreted as distance minimization—selecting the order closest to the population’s preferences, using a metric on the orders that reflects the distribution over the possible feasible sets. The distance is the probability that two orders will disagree about the optimal choice from a randomly selected available set. We provide an algorithmic method to compute these metrics in the case where the probability of a given feasible set is a function only of its cardinality.     

Rational choice theory

Having asked you to follow me through some difficult terrain, here I want only to emphasize three summary observations. First, sociologists reject rational choice theory but use it just the same; in all other fields that try to analyze organic processes, rational choice theory remains dominant, too; it may be hardwired into our thinking, and thus may be more powerful than we are inclined to believe; and for all these reasons we shall keep on doing it, whether or not we attack it.     

Bounded rationality and consumer choice: an evaluation of consumer choice of mobile bundles

Although numerous prior studies have examined consumer valuations in bundling transactions from a theoretical perspective, relatively few have focused on large datasets. In addition, little prior research has targeted developing telecommunication markets. To address these gaps in the literature, we examine the rationality of consumers' bundling choices in the mobile telecommunication industry, using operational data from China Telecom. We compare the current prices paid by consumers to the optimal prices of alternative bundling plans, based on the consumers' actual usage. We determine whether bundling choice is affected by risk aversion, the complexity of the bundle, and learning effects. The findings suggested that many users chose sub-optimal bundles that were more expensive than others were. The results showed that consumers were risk averse, and they were more likely to make non-optimal bundle selections with more complex usage patterns. No significant differences were found according to gender, age, or usage level.     

Informational geometry of social choice

 Elementary geometry is used to understand, extend and resolve basic informational difficulties in choice theory. This includes axiomatic conclusions such as Arrow’s Theorem, Chichilnisky’s dictator, and the Gibbard–Satterthwaite result. In this manner new results about positional voting methods are outlined, and difficulties with axiomatic approach are discussed. A topological result about “dictatorial” behavior is offered. Received: 15 December 1993/Accepted: 22 April 1996     

Self-selective social choice functions

It is not uncommon that a society facing a choice problem has also to choose the choice rule itself. In such situations, when information about voters’ preferences is complete, the voters’ preferences on alternatives induce voters’ preferences over the set of available voting rules. Such a setting immediately gives rise to a natural question concerning consistency between these two levels of choice. If a choice rule employed to resolve the society’s original choice problem does not choose itself, when it is also used for choosing the choice rule, then this phenomenon can be regarded as inconsistency of this choice rule as it rejects itself according to its own rationale. Koray (Econometrica 68: 981–995, 2000) proved that the only neutral, unanimous universally self-selective social choice functions are the dictatorial ones. Here we introduce to our society a constitution, which rules out inefficient social choice rules. When inefficient social choice rules become unavailable for comparison, the property of self-selectivity becomes more interesting and we show that some non-trivial self-selective social choice functions do exist. Under certain assumptions on the constitution we describe all of them.     

Uncovered set choice rules

I study necessary and sufficient conditions for a choice function to be rationalized in the following sense: there exists a total asymmetric relation T (a tournament) such that, for each feasible (finite) set, the choice set coincides with the uncovered set of T restricted to that feasible set. This notion of ‘maximization’ offers testable restrictions on observable choice behavior.     

Multi-profile intergenerational social choice

In an infinite-horizon setting, Ferejohn and Page showed that any social welfare function satisfying Arrow’s axioms and stationarity must be a dictatorship of the first generation. Packel strengthened this result by proving that no collective choice rule generating complete social preferences can satisfy unlimited domain, weak Pareto and stationarity. We prove that this impossibility survives under a domain restriction and without completeness. We propose an alternative stationarity axiom and show that a social welfare function on a specific domain satisfies this modified version and some standard social choice axioms if and only if it is a chronological dictatorship.