There’s a whole literature on preference intransitivity, but really, it’s not that hard to catch yourself doing it. Just pay attention to your pairwise comparisons when you’re choosing among three or more options, and don’t let your mind cover up its dirty little secret.
Can you give an example of circular preferences that aren’t contextual and therefore only superficially circular (like Benja’s Alice and coin-flipping examples are contextual and only superficially irrational), and that you endorse, rather than regarding as bugs that should be resolved somehow? I’m pretty sure that any time I feel like I have intransitive preferences, it’s because of things like framing effects or loss aversion that I would rather not be subject to.
That does happen to me from time to time, but when it does (and I notice that) I just think “hey, I’ve found a bug in my mindware” and try to fix that. (Usually it’s a result of some ugh field.)
There’s a whole literature on preference intransitivity, but really, it’s not that hard to catch yourself doing it. Just pay attention to your pairwise comparisons when you’re choosing among three or more options, and don’t let your mind cover up its dirty little secret.
Yup. Possible cause: motivations are caused by at least 3 totally different kinds of processes which often conflict.
Can you give an example of circular preferences that aren’t contextual and therefore only superficially circular (like Benja’s Alice and coin-flipping examples are contextual and only superficially irrational), and that you endorse, rather than regarding as bugs that should be resolved somehow? I’m pretty sure that any time I feel like I have intransitive preferences, it’s because of things like framing effects or loss aversion that I would rather not be subject to.
That does happen to me from time to time, but when it does (and I notice that) I just think “hey, I’ve found a bug in my mindware” and try to fix that. (Usually it’s a result of some ugh field.)