Menu dependence

Short description: Psychological choice dependence on alternatives on offer

In decision theory, game theory, and rational choice, menu dependence arises when the evaluation of alternatives for choice or the mode of selection guiding choice varies parametrically with what collection of alternatives is available for choice (i.e., with what "menu" or decision problem a decision maker is facing). Menu dependence can be accompanied by violations of various so-called consistency (or coherence) constraints, such as Sen's condition α (also known as Chernoff's Axiom, a contraction condition) and Sen's conditions γ and β (expansion conditions). While the phenomenon can arise in a variety of ways, menu dependence is often informally associated with a change in a decision maker's preferences among alternatives with the addition of irrelevant alternatives.

See also

• Decoy effect
• Predictably Irrational, book by Dan Ariely

References

• Saini, Ritesh (2008). Menu dependence in risky choice (Thesis). OCLC 857236573. CiteSeer^x: a51c1c0b707a028be4337c348c95c52b548db0e3.

Further reading

• Sen, Amartya (1994). "The Formulation of Rational Choice". The American Economic Review 84 (2): 385–390. 
• Sen, Amartya (July 1997). "Maximization and the Act of Choice". Econometrica 65 (4): 745–779. doi:10.2307/2171939. 
• Sen, Amartya (2002). Rationality and Freedom. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01351-3. 
• Sniderman, Paul M.; Bullock, John (2018). "A Consistency Theory of Public Opinion and Political Choice: The Hypothesis of Menu Dependence". in Saris, Willem E.; Sniderman, Paul M.. Studies in Public Opinion: Attitudes, Nonattitudes, Measurement Error, and Change. Princeton University Press. pp. 337–358. doi:10.2307/j.ctv346px8.16. ISBN 978-0-691-18838-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=-K5cDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA337.