A preference change or a perception change? A comment on Dietrich and List

Dietrich and List (2012) enrich the standard model of choice by explicitly modeling a decision maker’s mental state. They assume that a change in mental state either induces a change in preferences, or alternatively, a change in the decision maker’s perception of the choice problem. This paper argues that the two interpretations are not always interchangeable. Presented are two examples which demonstrate that decision maker’s (‘subjective’) perception may not be adequately modeled as embodied in his preferences over (‘objective’) alternatives. It is also emphasized that in order to understand choice behavior, one has to take into the account decision maker’s perception of the choice problem rather than its ‘objective’ description by an observer.