Preference reversal
Which option you prefer flips when the way you're asked changes.
What it means
A reversal in expressed preference between two options brought about purely by a change in how the preference is elicited or framed, with the options themselves held constant — a fundamental challenge to the assumption that people have stable, well-ordered preferences. The classic case pits choosing against pricing: people often choose a high-probability, low-payoff bet over a low-probability, high-payoff one, yet place a higher selling price on the latter, because pricing makes the dollar payoff the salient anchor while choice weights the chance of winning. Other reversals arise between joint and separate evaluation, or with different response scales, and they are explained by the compatibility principle and scale-dependent attention rather than by changing tastes. Preference reversals are decisive evidence that preferences are partly constructed in the moment, which matters for economics, valuation, and any attempt to read 'true' preferences off a single elicited response.
Examples
Offered a near-certain small win versus a long-shot big win, gamblers tend to choose the safe bet but quote a higher cash price for the risky one — a direct contradiction.
Hsee's dictionary study: judged alone, a pristine dictionary with 10,000 entries is priced above a torn one with 20,000; judged side by side, the bigger one wins easily.
Reviewed side by side, a hiring panel picks the candidate with deeper experience; interviewed on separate days, they score the more charming one higher — same two people, different mode of evaluation.
First described in Lichtenstein & Slovic (1971); Grether & Plott (1979).