Second-order preferences: What we want others to like and how it affects what we think of public policy

Public policy must often decide about issues where a change in behavior is likely to be accompanied by a corresponding change in preferences, such as pornography becoming less scandalous if it is widely consumed, or same-sex desire less offensive if more gay people are getting married. All other things being equal, the adaptation of preferences to match prevalent behavior makes them more likely to be fulfilled and hence confers utility. However, we show that people hold other-regarding second-order preferences (preferences regarding the preferences held by others), which are somewhat independent of first-order preferences, and which affect their preferences for policy changes. In Study~1 we found that, across 19 scenarios, such second-order preferences were consistently more negative than first-order preferences. In Study~2, second-order preferences were associated with subjects judging a policy worse if values were to adapt to it. In Studies 3 and 4, subjects believed others to be more mistaken than they themselves would be about what is good for them, resulting in a greater discrepancy of second-order preferences from predicted first-order preferences.