Intensity of preference

Intensity of preference, also known as intensity preference,^[1] is a term used to identify and describe what happens in a process which leads to consensus agreement or consensus ranking.^[2] The phrase recognizes that decisions and decision-making involve intensity of feeling about a choice and the choice preference itself.

The concept of preference intensity has been criticized over the past sixty years because of the problems in measuring it.^[3] The term is used in economics, politics, marketing and other areas.

History

Ranking and consensus have been the subject of research for 200+ years.^[2] In the 20th century, the term intensity of preference was coined by the work of the economist Kenneth Arrow, who was a recipient of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Economics.^[4]

Analysis

Intensity of preference is a factor in an analysis of how individual choices develop into social choices. Standard election procedures notoriously ignore differences in intensity of preferences.^[5]

For example, the intensity of preference is a one of many factors which are important in voting. The term is a measure of an individual voter's (or group of voters') willingness to do something. Intensity of preference focuses on the inconveniences involved in the act of officially registering a choice at a specific time and place, not the vote itself.^[6] For example, the lines for voting in South Africa's 1994 election were very long.^[7] The "intensity of preference" and the inconvenience of voting were factors in the election of Nelson Mandela.

Related pages

• Consensus
• Majority rule
• False consensus
• Plural ignorance