The History and Methodology of Expected Utility

Moscati, Ivan

doi:10.1017/9781009198295

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 82 publications

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“…However, this heterogeneity in methodology can have the consequence of implicitly defining varying conceptualisations of value under the umbrella term of SV, with the potential to conflate SV with other closely related concepts. For example, hedonic understandings of attractiveness [ 1 ] and pleasure [ 31 ] can be understood as distinct from utilitarian concepts of worth [ 3 ] and a willingness to exert effort or a motivation to take on costs [ 32 ]. Further, there are established differences in the brain circuitry involved in the liking, wanting, and pleasantness of a reward, in particular in subregions of the VS [ 33 – 36 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic value in the Brain: A meta-analysis of willingness-to-pay using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction

et al. 2023

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Forming and comparing subjective values (SVs) of choice options is a critical stage of decision-making. Previous studies have highlighted a complex network of brain regions involved in this process by utilising a diverse range of tasks and stimuli, varying in economic, hedonic and sensory qualities. However, the heterogeneity of tasks and sensory modalities may systematically confound the set of regions mediating the SVs of goods. To identify and delineate the core brain valuation system involved in processing SV, we utilised the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) auction, an incentivised demand-revealing mechanism which quantifies SV through the economic metric of willingness-to-pay (WTP). A coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis analysed twenty-four fMRI studies employing a BDM task (731 participants; 190 foci). Using an additional contrast analysis, we also investigated whether this encoding of SV would be invariant to the concurrency of auction task and fMRI recordings. A fail-safe number analysis was conducted to explore potential publication bias. WTP positively correlated with fMRI-BOLD activations in the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex with a sub-cluster extending into anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral ventral striatum, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right anterior insula. Contrast analysis identified preferential engagement of the mentalizing-related structures in response to concurrent scanning. Together, our findings offer succinct empirical support for the core structures participating in the formation of SV, separate from the hedonic aspects of reward and evaluated in terms of WTP using BDM, and show the selective involvement of inhibition-related brain structures during active valuation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic value in the Brain: A meta-analysis of willingness-to-pay using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction

et al. 2023

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Preference Change

Strohmaier,

Messerli

2024

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For most of its history, decision theory has investigated the rational choices of humans under the assumption of static preferences. Human preferences, however, change. In recent years, decision theory has increasingly acknowledged the reality of preference change throughout life. This Element provides an accessible introduction and new contributions to the debates on preference change. It is divided into three chapters. In the first chapter, the authors discuss what preference change is and whether we can integrate it into decision theory. In the second chapter, they present models of preference change, including a novel proposal of their own. In the third and final chapter, they discuss how we can rationally choose a course of action when our preferences might change. Both the transformative experience literature and recent work on choosing for changing selves are discussed.

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The History and Methodology of Expected Utility

Moscati

2023

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This Element offers an accessible but technically detailed review of expected utility theory (EU), which is a model of individual decision-making under uncertainty that is central for both economics and philosophy. The Element's approach falls between the history of ideas and economic methodology. At the historical level, it reviews EU by following its conceptual evolution from its original formulation in the eighteenth century through its transformations and extensions in the mid-twentieth century to its more recent supersession by post-EU theories such as prospect theory. In reconstructing the history of EU, it focuses on the methodological issues that have accompanied its evolution, such as whether the utility function and the other components of EU correspond to actual mental entities. On many of these issues, no consensus has yet been reached, and in this Element the author offers his view on them.

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The History and Methodology of Expected Utility

Cited by 7 publications

References 82 publications

Economic value in the Brain: A meta-analysis of willingness-to-pay using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction

Economic value in the Brain: A meta-analysis of willingness-to-pay using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction

Preference Change

The History and Methodology of Expected Utility

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