{"id":242532,"date":"2026-08-11T05:30:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T10:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/when-it-comes-to-predicting-peoples-preferences-it-pays-to-consider-the-power-of-three"},"modified":"2026-08-11T05:30:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T10:30:42","slug":"when-it-comes-to-predicting-peoples-preferences-it-pays-to-consider-the-power-of-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/when-it-comes-to-predicting-peoples-preferences-it-pays-to-consider-the-power-of-three","title":{"rendered":"When it comes to predicting people\u2019s preferences, it pays to consider \u2018the power of three\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/when-it-comes-to-predicting-peoples-preferences-it-pays-to-consider-the-power-of-three.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In his 1927 paper, \u201cA law of comparative judgment,\u201d the American psychologist L. L. Thurstone proposed that when people select one option among multiple alternatives, they are picking the one that has the highest value to them, even though they cannot assign a particular number to that choice.<\/p>\n<p>Thurstone was a pioneer of \u201cpsychometrics\u201d\u2014a field built on the premise that mental processes, which we cannot see, can nevertheless be measured and quantified. His 1927 paper laid the groundwork for what are now called random utility models, which provide a mathematical framework for describing human preferences\u2014information that can be relied on, in turn, to make predictions about various hypothetical situations.<\/p>\n<p>Random utility models (RUMs) are so named because they assess the \u201cutility,\u201d or benefit, that can be obtained from a given choice\u2014such as deciding which book to read first among the stack of novels you brought back from the library.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his 1927 paper, \u201cA law of comparative judgment,\u201d the American psychologist L. L. Thurstone proposed that when people select one option among multiple alternatives, they are picking the one that has the highest value to them, even though they cannot assign a particular number to that choice. Thurstone was a pioneer of \u201cpsychometrics\u201d\u2014a field [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2229,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mathematics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}