Three Analyses of Sour Grapes

Abstract

The phenomenon of adaptive preferences -sometimes also known under the name of sour grapes -has long caused a stir in Social Theory. Among logicians, notably those in the dynamic logic or belief revision traditions, the question of preference change has recently seen a surge of interest. However, although the former question seems an instance of the latter, the theories of preference change proposed to date do not seem to give a firm handle on adaptive preferences, and certainly not the sort of deeper understanding which one might like. In this paper, the precise problem posed by adaptive preferences, as seen from the point of view of a theoretician who intends to model or understand the phenomenon, will be clarified, and three models of the phenomenon will be presented and compared. The general intention of the article is to sound out some of the wider consequences of the phenomenon for the project of modelling and understanding the relationship between decisions taken in different situations. Difficulties which arise when several decisions and several situations are involved shall be discussed, and an approach to these difficulties shall be suggested. This approach places particular demands on would-be models of the sour grapes phenomenon; these demands will shed light on the adequacy of the models proposed.

Sour grapes and sweet victories: How actions shape preferences

“…This post-failure devaluation may account for the case of the fox in the famous Aesop’s fable, who revised his judgment about the desirability of grapes that he failed to reach, leading to the saying “any fool can despise what he cannot get”. This story is often considered as a typical example of cognitive dissonance and received different psychological interpretations: pretending that grapes were sour could for instance attenuate frustration or temper the reputation of being a loser [13, 35, 36]. Surprisingly however, previous studies have not intended to disentangle the impact of choice, success vs. failure and actual effort expenditure on subsequent valuation.…”

Living without state-independence of utilities

“…To this extent, the latter cases resemble the proposal here, where, as stated above, the natural interpretation of the other situations involved is as hypothetical. Indeed, some of the arguments presented by Karni and Mongin (2000) in favour of the use of hypothetical data in elicitation carry over to the current result; see Hill (2009) for other arguments which are particular to sort of data involved here.…”

“…7 It should be clear from the discussion so far that, beyond the observation that γ is a contextual or situation-dependent factor, there are several ways to give it a more concrete interpretation. A full discussion of the range of interpretations is beyond the scope of this article; we shall just present one further interpretation which is perhaps applicable in some if not all cases, and which has already been suggested in the discussion of adaptive preferences (Hill 2009). …”

“…The latter is the state-dependent utility function obtained as the product of the factor γ and the absolute utility u. See Hill (2009) for an extended discussion of this distinction and the importance for the problem of adaptive preferences. 6 The role of γ as characterising the interdependence between states and consequences, or the difference between the "absolute" and "situation-relative" utilities may prove useful in other areas of economic analysis.…”

Too much of a good thing: Overtreatment in epilepsy

“…In other cases, it might be intentional, eg, since my favourite ice cream is no longer available, I decide to try to enjoy a different flavour and genuinely grow to like it. Adjusting our preferences then is an understandable psychological means of coping with a suboptimal situation …”