Thank you, Michael! I think this hypothetical is useful & makes the topic easier to discuss.
Short question: What do you mean by “user error?”
Longer version of the question:
Let’s assume that I fill out weights for the various categories of desire (e.g., health, wealth, relationships) & my satisfaction in each of those areas.
Then, let’s say you erase that experience from my mind, and then you ask me to rate my global life satisfaction.
Let’s now assume there was a modest difference between the two ratings. It is not instinctively clear to me why I should prefer judgment #1 to judgment #2. That is, I think it’s an open question whether the “desire-based life satisfaction judgment” or the “desire-free life satisfaction judgment” is the more “valid” response.
To me, “user error” could mean several things:
The “desire-free” judgment is flawed because the user is not thinking holistically enough or reflecting enough. They are not thinking carefully about what they care about & how those things have actually went.
The “desire-based” judgment is flawed because the list of desires misses some things that the user actually finds important (i.e., it’s impossible to create a comprehensive list)
The “desire-based” judgment is flawed because the user is not assigning weights properly (i.e., I might report that wealth matters twice as much to my life satisfaction than friendship, but I might be misperceiving my true preferences, which are better reflected in the “desire-free” case).
In other words, if we could eliminate these forms of user error, I would probably agree with you that this distinction is arbitrary. In practice, though, I think these “desire-based” and “desire-free” versions of life satisfaction ought to be considered distinct (albeit I’d expect them to be modestly correlated). I also don’t think it’s clear to me that the “desire-based” judgment should be considered better (i.e., more valid). And even if it should be considered better, I think I’d still want to know about the
Furthermore, when making decisions, I would probably want to see both judgments. For example, let’s assume:
Intervention A improves “desire-based life satisfaction judgments” by 15% and “desire-free life satisfaction judgments” by 5%
Intervention B improves “desire-based life satisfaction judgments” by 10% and “desire-free life satisfaction judgments” by 10%
Intervention C improves “desire-based life satisfaction judgments” by 15% and “desire-free life satisfaction judgments” by 15%.
I would prefer Intervention C over intervention A, even though they both improve “desire-based satisfaction judgments” by the same amount. I also think reasonable people would disagree when comparing Intervention A to Intervention B.
For these reasons, I wonder if it’s practically useful to consider “desire-based” and “desire-free” life satisfactions as separate constructs.
Thank you, Michael! I think this hypothetical is useful & makes the topic easier to discuss.
Short question: What do you mean by “user error?”
Longer version of the question:
Let’s assume that I fill out weights for the various categories of desire (e.g., health, wealth, relationships) & my satisfaction in each of those areas.
Then, let’s say you erase that experience from my mind, and then you ask me to rate my global life satisfaction.
Let’s now assume there was a modest difference between the two ratings. It is not instinctively clear to me why I should prefer judgment #1 to judgment #2. That is, I think it’s an open question whether the “desire-based life satisfaction judgment” or the “desire-free life satisfaction judgment” is the more “valid” response.
To me, “user error” could mean several things:
The “desire-free” judgment is flawed because the user is not thinking holistically enough or reflecting enough. They are not thinking carefully about what they care about & how those things have actually went.
The “desire-based” judgment is flawed because the list of desires misses some things that the user actually finds important (i.e., it’s impossible to create a comprehensive list)
The “desire-based” judgment is flawed because the user is not assigning weights properly (i.e., I might report that wealth matters twice as much to my life satisfaction than friendship, but I might be misperceiving my true preferences, which are better reflected in the “desire-free” case).
In other words, if we could eliminate these forms of user error, I would probably agree with you that this distinction is arbitrary. In practice, though, I think these “desire-based” and “desire-free” versions of life satisfaction ought to be considered distinct (albeit I’d expect them to be modestly correlated). I also don’t think it’s clear to me that the “desire-based” judgment should be considered better (i.e., more valid). And even if it should be considered better, I think I’d still want to know about the
Furthermore, when making decisions, I would probably want to see both judgments. For example, let’s assume:
Intervention A improves “desire-based life satisfaction judgments” by 15% and “desire-free life satisfaction judgments” by 5%
Intervention B improves “desire-based life satisfaction judgments” by 10% and “desire-free life satisfaction judgments” by 10%
Intervention C improves “desire-based life satisfaction judgments” by 15% and “desire-free life satisfaction judgments” by 15%.
I would prefer Intervention C over intervention A, even though they both improve “desire-based satisfaction judgments” by the same amount. I also think reasonable people would disagree when comparing Intervention A to Intervention B.
For these reasons, I wonder if it’s practically useful to consider “desire-based” and “desire-free” life satisfactions as separate constructs.