Choice Overload and Height Ranking of Menus in Partially-Ordered Sets

Entropy

Marcello Basili¹  Stefano Vannucci² 

[1] Department of Economics and Statistics and School of Economics and Management, University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy; E-Mail

关键词: choice overload;    poset;    maximum chain;    height-based ranking;   

DOI  :  10.3390/e17117584

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

When agents face incomplete information and their knowledge about the objects of choice is vague and imprecise, they tend to consider fewer choices and to process a smaller portion of the available information regarding their choices. This phenomenon is well-known as choice overload and is strictly related to the existence of a considerable amount of option-pairs that are not easily comparable. Thus, we use a finite partially-ordered set (poset) to model the subset of easily-comparable pairs within a set of options/items. The height ranking, a new ranking rule for menus, namely subposets of a finite poset, is then introduced and characterized. The height ranking rule ranks subsets of options in terms of the size of the longest chain that they include and is therefore meant to assess menus of available options in terms of the maximum number of distinct and easily-comparable alternative options that they offer.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.