The trouble with preferences

The Daily Mail reports that “almost half of young women aged 18 to 25 would prefer to have large breasts than high intelligence.” This raises four issues about the role of preferences in the social sciences:

1. Is the survey reliable? It’s possible that this number is downwardly biased because some women would not want to admit to being so shallow as to prefer to embiggen their norks than their IQ. This raises a general issue about the usefulness of survey data. Ideally, we would corroborate such data against other evidence. This is why happiness researchers, for example, correlate self-reported well-being against other indicators (pdf), such as the opinion of friends, tendency to smile and vulnerability to mental ill-health or cardiovascular disease.

2. Is this preference irrational? There’s some evidence that the returns to ability are low (pdf), especially for a given level of education, and have fallen (pdf) recently. There’s also the possibility that there are diminishing returns to IQ; whereas moving from an IQ of 80 to 100 might lift one out of poverty, moving from smart to very smart has less effect. Malcolm Gladwell has written:

The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point. Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage (Outliers, p79)

If this is the case - and it’s controversial (pdf) - then it is quite rational for many women to be less keen upon improving their IQ than enlarging their breasts, especially if the latter boosts their confidence.

3. Are pro-social preferences necessarily a good thing? It’s highly likely that the returns to IQ, insofar as they exist at all, are appropriated privately; social returns to education are notoriously hard (pdf) to find, and it’s reasonable to suppose the same is true for the returns to IQ. But bigger norks have an obviously positive externality.

Women’s preference for bigger norks over a higher IQ is, therefore, is a pro-social preference. Which raises a paradox. It’s common for the left to believe that pro-social preferences are a good thing - hence their animosity to capitalists’ “greed”. But in this case, I suspect many do not believe this. There’s a reason for this…

4. Does this show the prevalence of endogenous preferences? There are two ways this might be the case. Feminists will allege that the preference for larger norks represents an adaptation to a body image fostered by patriarchal forces. But there’s another mechanism too. Embiggening norks can be easily done by surgery, whereas it’s much less obvious that IQ can be so malleable in adults. A preference for bigger norks might therefore be an example of how people want what’s available.

This matters, because the idea of endogenous preferences undermines a lot of welfare economics and, indeed, the very case for democracy. The issues here, then, are rather important.

Comments

[Owen]

Good post, but two things:

1. "Norks"? Really?

2. Surely it's dubious that larger breasts have a positive externality, what with personal tastes varying and all that? Unless you've seen a study suggesting there is a tendency for those who find breasts attractive prefer larger ones.

[Account Deleted]

You confused me when you started referring to North Koreans.

Re your point 2. For the women to be acting rationally, in the way that you posit, we'd have to assume they are familiar with the diminishing gains of increased IQ and have therefore calculated that breast enlargement would deliver them greater marginal utility. This would imply that they are well-read and already possessed of considerable intelligence.

I think it's worth noting that the Mail story was a flimsy excuse to contrast Katie Price and Miriam Clegg. I think it safe to infer that the Mail believes breast enlargement is an aspiration for thick proles. The "study" itself appears to be nothing more than a marketing exercise, so no, it isn't reliable.

[Chris Purnell]

'Norks' I sense that you've lived amongst slack jawed yokels for too long.

[james higham]

I think you should line up all those young ladies and explain to them what you've just explained to us.

[Mark Wadsworth]

Fair enough, but...

1. We know that "a lot" (number unspecified of women pay to have their boobs enlarged; we also know that "a lot" (number unspecified) of women try hard at school, go to university etc. Although learning doesn't necessarily increase your IQ as such, it's in the same general direction. Question is, which number is bigger. I suspect the latter (can't say for sure).

2. Big boobs have positive externalities (nice for men to look at) and negative externalities (make some women with small or droopy ones feel unnecessarily bad about themselves). I'm not sure if there is a net gain to society once the number of large-boobed women passes the stage of "cheering up blokes" and reaches the stage of "making women depressed".

3. Not sure how any of this undermines democracy.

[Jim M.]

"Norks" is, I believe, a nod to the great Ronnie Barker.

[Keith]

I assume you think Democracy means giving people what they want and so if that means big tities for silly women then Democracy is a bad idea. Except that it is not clear that it does involve any great harm as such. It diverts medical resources to cosmetic use and so is sub optimal morally. Yet so is buying a Ferrari rather than a more utilitarian car. Or using public transport. All non essential consumption falls under the same objection. It is easier to laugh at silly women than silly men?

[Greg]

By this post I declare March 2nd to be March Hares' Day,* the rehearsal for April Fools Day.

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* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_as_a_March_hare

[guthrie]

A further negative externality to large breasts is the toll they take on your body over the years, with sore backs, expensive and ill fitting bras etc.

[ortega]

Intelligence is largely overrated.

[Bill Quango MP]

Not sure how far your tongue was pressed into your cheek while you were writing.
Perhaps some pictures would have helped to illustrate the appropriate points.

[PinkPolitika]

Isn't this actually less about the correlation between body shape and the IQ of the body owner, and more about body shape and newspaper sales (presumably, to not-very-bright blokes)?

[guthrie]

I rather thought the Mail was read by women as well as men, but perhaps women who have bought into the patriarchal ideal.
Or else they just run stories like that to bump up their online page viewings.

[deenk]

There's an old Southern U.S. saying:
"Big boobs are more important than big brains, cuz men see better than they think."

[Besi]

Posted on I heard/read this once before (I think from a war vreetan but I could be wrong about the source). It goes something like: "If you think someone is hiding in the bushes out there trying to ambush you, and there IS someone in the bushes trying to shoot you, it's not paranoia."For a soldier fighting in the jungles, experiencing a distressing emotion while thinking that there are people out there in the trees/bushes trying to kill them that would be fear. For your very average suburban Joe or Jane to think that a sniper is hiding in the bushes while they're walking from their car park to the front door in broad daylight it would be paranoia, because it would most likely be an irrational fear with no real basis.That is my two cents on what could be a VERY long discussion