An Information Theory Account of Preference Prediction Accuracy [Dataset]

To investigate the accuracy of couples' preference predictions we outline and empirically test three hypotheses: The positive valence hypothesis predicts that predictions for likes are more accurate than for dislikes.

The negative valence hypothesis predicts the opposite, namely that dislikes are predicted more accurately than dislikes. The base rate hypothesis predicts that preference knowledge critically depends on the base rates of likes and dislikes within a given domain. In a series of studies we show that predicting likes over dislikes has relatively little effect compared with base rates.