The physics of (ir)rational choice
Physics and Society
2019-04-22 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
Even though classic theories and models of discrete choice pose man as a rational being, it has been shown extensively that people persistently violate rationality in their actual choices. Recent models of decision-making take these violations often (partially) into account, however, a unified framework has not been established. Here we propose such a framework, inspired by the Ising model from statistical physics, and show that representing choice problems as a graph, together with a simple choice process, allows us to explain both rational decisions as well as violations of rationality.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1904.08975,
title = {The physics of (ir)rational choice},
author = {Joost Kruis and Gunter Maris and Maarten Marsman and Dylan Molenaar and Maria Bolsinova and Han L. J. van der Maas},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.08975},
year = {2019}
}