Do we make decisions for other people based on our predictions of their preferences?: evidence from financial and medical scenarios involving risk

Batteux, Eleonore; Ferguson, Eamonn; Tunney, Richard J.

Abstract

The ways in which the decisions we make for others differ from the ones we make for ourselves has received much attention in the literature, although less is known about their relationship to our predictions of the recipient’s preferences. The latter question is of particular importance given real-world occurrences of surrogate decision-making which require surrogates to consider the recipient’s preferences. We conducted three experiments which explore this relationship in the medical and financial domains. Although there were mean discrepancies between surrogate predictions and choices, we identified a predictive relationship between the two. Moreover, when participants took high risks for themselves, it seems that they were not willing to do so for others, even when they believed that the recipient’s preferences were similar to their own. We discuss these findings relative to current theories and real-world instances of surrogate decision-making.

Citation

Batteux, E., Ferguson, E., & Tunney, R. J. (2019). Do we make decisions for other people based on our predictions of their preferences?: evidence from financial and medical scenarios involving risk. Thinking and Reasoning, 26(2), 188-217. https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2019.1592779

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 5, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Apr 16, 2019
• Publication Date: Apr 16, 2019
• Deposit Date: Mar 28, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 25, 2019
• Print ISSN: 1354-6783
• Electronic ISSN: 1464-0708
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 188-217
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2019.1592779
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1703169
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13546783.2019.1592779