Preference Change through Choice

Opening Paragraph: In an unforgettable performance by the English comedian Eddie Izzard, he portrays the Spanish Inquisition as conducted by the wimpy Anglican Church. Playing a supremely domesticated inquisitor, he offers the accused heretics the intriguing choice between “Cake or Death?” Apart from the hilariousness of this scene, the social scientist can appreciate it as one of the last safe havens for neoclassical economics, rational choice, and expected utility theory, because people really and truly have stable and identifiable preferences to help them decide between cake and death. There is simply no amount of social-psychology shenanigans that could push this preference around (no matter how little Festinger would pay people for choosing the death sentence, it would not generate enough cognitive dissonance to sway anyone) (Festinger, 1957).