Noun

preference (plural preferences)

1. The selection of one thing or person over others.
2. The option to so select, and the one selected.
3. The state of being preferred over others.
4. A strong liking or personal valuation.
5. A preferential bias; partiality; discrimination.
6. A card game.

The term “preferences” is used in a variety of related, but not identical, ways in the scientific literature. This makes it necessary to make explicit the sense in which the term is used in different social sciences.

In psychology, preferences could be conceived of as an individual’s attitude towards a set of objects, typically reflected in an explicit decision-making process (Lichtenstein & Slovic, 2006). Alternatively, one could interpret the term “preference” to mean evaluative judgment in the sense of liking or disliking an object (e.g., Scherer, 2005) which is the most typical definition employed in psychology. However, it does not mean that a preference is necessarily stable over time. Preference can be notably modified by decision-making processes, such as choices (Brehm, 1956; Sharot, De Martino, & Dolan, 2009), even in an unconscious way (see Coppin, Delplanque, Cayeux, Porcherot, & Sander, 2010).

In economics and other social sciences, preference refers to the set of assumptions relating to a real or imagined "choice" between alternatives and the possibility of rank ordering of these alternatives, based on the degree of happiness, satisfaction, gratification, enjoyment, or utility they provide.. Although economists are usually not interested in choices or preferences in themselves, they are interested in the theory of choice because it serves as a background for empirical demand analysis.

"Preference" may also refer to non-choices, such as genetic and biological explanations for one's preference. Sexual orientation, for example, is considered a sexual preference.