Many psychologists and behavioral economists agree that our preferences are often constructed, rather than innate or pre-computed and stored. Little research, however, has explored the implications that established facts about human attention and memory have when people marshal evidence for their decisions. This talk introduces query theory, a psychological process model of preference construction, and uses it to explain a range of phenomena in intertemporal choice, including our impatience when we are asked to delay consumption. Query theory provides interventions to choice architecture and explains their effectiveness, e.g., the ability of attribute labels and choice defaults to shape choice.
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