General Evaluability Theory.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Behavioral Economics
• Decision Science

Background:

• Individuals often evaluate options differently depending on whether they are considered alone or with other options.
• Understanding how people perceive and react to varying attribute values is crucial in psychology and economics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a General Evaluability Theory (GET) that explains value sensitivity and mispredictions of value sensitivity.
• To unify existing research on preference reversals and related phenomena.
• To generate new research directions in areas like temporal discounting and subjective well-being.

Main Methods:

• Building upon prior research on preference reversals between joint and separate evaluations.
• Developing a theoretical framework (GET) to explain value sensitivity.
• Synthesizing findings from diverse psychological and economic domains.

Main Results:

• The GET provides a unified explanation for phenomena such as duration neglect and affective forecasting errors.
• The theory predicts specific conditions under which individuals are sensitive to attribute values.
• The GET identifies circumstances leading to mispredictions of one's own or others' value sensitivity.

Conclusions:

• The General Evaluability Theory offers a comprehensive framework for understanding human value sensitivity and judgment.
• GET unifies disparate findings and opens new avenues for research on decision-making and well-being.
• This theory has broad implications for understanding economic and psychological responses to varying attribute values.