[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-152228-en":3,"doc-seo-152228-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":27,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},152228,13056712833777,"Paura","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0",8,"Research & Report","Revealed Incomplete Preferences","The paper studies how people reveal incomplete preferences over monetary gambles when beliefs about uncertainty are subjective. Participants rank lotteries and the rankings are used to estimate preferences, with payoffs determined by what the estimates predict they would choose in unseen questions. About 40% report incompleteness, generally rarely, and incompleteness appears driven more by imprecise tastes than imprecise beliefs. When forced to choose, subjects show more inconsistency and preference reversals, and the study finds indirectly revealed incompleteness in up to 98% of participants.","arXiv :2205 .08584v3 [ econ .GN] 5 Oct 2022  \nRevealed Incomplete Preferences*  \nKirby Nielsen† Luca Rigotti‡  \nOctober 6, 2022  \nAbstract  \nWe elicit incomplete preferences over monetary gambles with subjective uncertainty. Subjects rank gambles, and these rankings are used to estimate preferences; payments are based on estimated preferences. About 40% of subjects express incompleteness, but they do so infrequently. Incompleteness is similar for individuals with precise and imprecise beliefs, and in an environment with objective uncertainty, suggesting that it results from imprecise tastes more than imprecise beliefs. When we force subjects to choose, we observe more inconsis  \ntencies and preference reversals. Evidence suggests there is incompleteness that is indirectly revealed—in up to 98% of subjects—in addition to what we directly measure.  \nKEYWORDS: incomplete preferences; subjective uncertainty; imprecise beliefs; imprecise tastes  \n*We thank Marina Agranov, David Ahn, Gábor Békés, Federico Echenique, Simone Galperti, Guillaume Fréchette, Yoram Halevy, Paul J. Healy, Muriel Niederle, Lee Pang, Pietro Ortoleva, Charles D. Sprenger, Colin Sullivan, Emanuel Vespa, Ryan Webb, and Lanny Zrill for helpful comments and suggestions. This study was reviewed and granted exemption by the Institutional Review Board at California Institute of Technology.  \n†[kirby@caltech.edu](kirby@caltech.edu) ; Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology  \n‡[luca@pitt.edu](luca@pitt.edu), Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh  \nIt is conceivable and may even in a way be more realistic to allow for cases where the individual is neither able to state which of two alternatives he prefers nor that they are equally desirable.  \nvon Neumann and Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior  \nIs it rational to force decisions in such cases?  \nAumann, Utility Theory Without the Completeness Axiom  \nCompleteness is one of the most fundamental axioms on preferences; put simply, completeness states that an individual can rank any two alternatives. In contrast, when preferences are incomplete, there exist alternatives that the individual is unable to rank.1 Completeness is so central to standard economic theory that “rationality” is often defined as completeness plus transitivity (as, for example, in the very first definition of Mas-Colell et al., 1995), suggesting an implicit normative component to the axiom. Despite the widespread reliance on completeness in models of choice, there have been few attempts to measure the extent to which it is a valid assumption on preferences.2 We introduce a new method for identifying incompleteness, and find that about forty percent of our subjects do not have complete preferences in a simple stochastic environment.  \nIncompleteness is inherently difficult to measure because decision-making experiments elicit choices and typically force individuals to choose between alternatives. One could attempt to identify incompleteness by looking for indicators that might correlate with it, or for choice patterns that could be manifestations of individuals'attempts to complete their incomplete preferences. This often requires a model of how individuals complete their preferences, and whichever payment mechanism is imposed can muddy the interpretation of revealed incompleteness. For example, if one randomly picks an alternative when subjects report that they do not know which  \n1More formally, given a preference order º, completeness states that between any two alternativesp and q, either p º q, or q º p, or both; preferences are not complete if there exist p and q such that neither p º q nor q º p.  \n2Notable early exceptions include Cohen et al., 1985, Cohen et al., 1987, and more recently Cubitt et al., 2015, Bayrak and Hey, 2020, and Costa-Gomes et al., 2021 . We discuss these papers, among others, in Section IV.  \nthey prefer, then one could be capturing a preference for randomi","cbCainm4x69Dc5zx","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCainm4x69Dc5zx","pdf",1619966,1,51,"English","en",105,"# Abstract\n## Motivation and background\n## Measurement challenges\n## New method for identifying incompleteness\n## Incentives and interpretation\n## Findings and evidence","[{\"question\":\"How does the study measure incomplete preferences?\",\"answer\":\"Subjects rank lotteries, and those rankings are used to estimate their preferences. Payoffs are tied to what the estimated preferences predict they would choose in questions they never face.\"},{\"question\":\"What portion of participants show incomplete preferences, and how often?\",\"answer\":\"About forty percent of subjects express incompleteness. They do so infrequently rather than as a constant pattern across tasks.\"},{\"question\":\"What causes incompleteness according to the evidence?\",\"answer\":\"Incompleteness is similar for individuals with precise and imprecise beliefs, and under objective uncertainty, suggesting it stems more from imprecise tastes than from imprecise beliefs.\"}]","Revealed Incomplete Preferences | PDF",1787857884,129,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":28},"revealed-incomplete-preferences","",{"@graph":36,"@context":85},[37,54,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,48,51],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":47},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":50},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":52,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":53},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/revealed-incomplete-preferences/152228/",4,{"url":52,"name":13,"@type":55,"author":56,"headline":13,"publisher":58,"fileFormat":61,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":62,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":61,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":57},"Person",{"url":41,"name":59,"@type":60},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-08-27",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"How does the study measure incomplete preferences?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"Subjects rank lotteries, and those rankings are used to estimate their preferences. Payoffs are tied to what the estimated preferences predict they would choose in questions they never face.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"What portion of participants show incomplete preferences, and how often?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"About forty percent of subjects express incompleteness. They do so infrequently rather than as a constant pattern across tasks.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"What causes incompleteness according to the evidence?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"Incompleteness is similar for individuals with precise and imprecise beliefs, and under objective uncertainty, suggesting it stems more from imprecise tastes than from imprecise beliefs.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":52,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":59,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":52},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,101,105,110,115,120,123,128,131,135],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":47,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":53,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]