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Thurstonian-Based Analyses: Past, Present, and Future Utilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Ulf Böckenholt
Ulf Böckenholt*
Affiliation:
McGill University
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to: E-mail: ulf.bockenholt@mcgill.ca
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Abstract

Current psychometric models of choice behavior are strongly influenced by Thurstone’s (1927, 1931) experimental and statistical work on measuring and scaling preferences. Aided by advances in computational techniques, choice models can now accommodate a wide range of different data types and sources of preference variability among respondents induced by such diverse factors as person-specific choice sets or different functional forms for the underlying utility representations. At the same time, these models are increasingly challenged by behavioral work demonstrating the prevalence of choice behavior that is not consistent with the underlying assumptions of these models. I discuss new modeling avenues that can account for such seemingly inconsistent choice behavior and conclude by emphasizing the interdisciplinary frontiers in the study of choice behavior and the resulting challenges for psychometricians.

Keywords

consistency conditionsidentifiabilityrandom utility modelssocial dependencies
Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , December 2006 , pp. 615 - 629
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

The author would like to thank R. Darrell Bock whose work inspired many of the ideas presented here. The paper benefitted from helpful comments by Albert Maydeu-Olivares and Rung-Ching Tsai. The reported research was supported in parts by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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