Preferences: Why & How To Destabilize Preferences

Stable preferences can be counterproductive. Problems characterized by novelty, ambiguity, many objectives, or shifting conditions may benefit from a degree of preference instability. In such contexts, decision making requires openness to reframing values, reassessing goals, and exploring new trade-offs.

This text identifies the properties of decision problems in which it is valuable to destabilize preferences. It outlines how decision governance can be used to intentionally create conditions that facilitate constructive shifts in preferences.

This text is part of the series on decision governance. Decision Governance is concerned with how to improve the quality of decisions by changing the context, process, data, and tools (including AI) used to make decisions. Understanding decision governance empowers decision makers and decision stakeholders to improve how they make decisions with others. Start with “What is Decision Governance?” and find all texts on decision governance here.

Properties of Decision Problems That Benefit from Unstable Preferences

Unstable preferences are not always a flaw in decision making; in some cases, they are a feature. The following properties of decision problems favour decision makers who are willing—or even required—to revisit, revise, or rethink their preferences over time:

• High Uncertainty or Ambiguity: When the problem space is poorly understood, the range of possible outcomes is unknown, or probabilities cannot be reliably assigned, stable preferences offer little guidance. Under conditions of ambiguity (Ellsberg, 1961), individuals benefit from reevaluating what matters as new information emerges.
• Novel or Unprecedented Contexts: In decision environments without historical precedent or in situations involving emerging technologies, prior preferences may be ill-formed or based on irrelevant analogies. Here, preference instability facilitates learning, experimentation, and openness to alternative models of value.
• Multiple and Conflicting Objectives: Many complex decisions involve trade-offs across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. In such cases, preferences often emerge through deliberation and negotiation. Instability allows decision makers to explore different weightings of objectives and engage with diverse perspectives (Fischhoff, 1991).
• Stakeholder Diversity and Value Pluralism: Where decisions must incorporate inputs from multiple stakeholders with conflicting values, insisting on a single, stable preference structure can marginalize certain voices. Flexible preferences enable more inclusive decision processes and legitimate compromises.
• Iterative and Exploratory Decision Structures: Some problems are approached through successive iterations—via pilot projects, scenario planning, or adaptive management. In such settings, preferences evolve alongside a growing understanding of trade-offs, outcomes, and contextual feedback.

Example: Urban Climate Adaptation Planning

Urban climate adaptation planning illustrates how preference instability can be beneficial. City governments must decide how to prepare for future climate risks—heatwaves, flooding, rising sea levels, and infrastructure vulnerability. The problem is inherently complex, uncertain, and politically sensitive.

In the early stages of adaptation planning, stakeholders—including city departments, residents, businesses, and advocacy groups—often hold incomplete, inconsistent, or conflicting preferences. For example, one group may prioritize green infrastructure, another may emphasize equity, while a third focuses on cost-efficiency. Fixed preferences based on past urban planning paradigms may ignore novel risks or emerging community needs.

Insisting on stable preferences too early in the process can lock in path dependencies, limit experimentation, and entrench dominant interests. By contrast, fostering deliberation, exposing trade-offs, and encouraging reappraisal of values can help align strategies with long-term resilience, public legitimacy, and adaptive capacity.

How Decision Governance Can Be Used to Destabilize Preferences

Decision governance typically aims to stabilize decisions by structuring roles, processes, and information flows. However, in contexts like climate adaptation, governance can also serve to destabilize preferences in a productive way. This involves designing conditions under which preferences are likely to be reexamined, refined, or reframed. Five governance strategies support constructive preference destabilization.

1. Deliberative Forums and Stakeholder Engagement

Bringing together diverse stakeholders to deliberate on goals and trade-offs encourages mutual learning and preference revision. Governance processes that support inclusive dialogue—such as citizen assemblies, design charrettes, or facilitated workshops—can surface latent values and challenge entrenched assumptions.

2. Scenario Planning and Normative Backcasting

By asking decision makers to envision multiple plausible futures, scenario planning stimulates reflection on underlying preferences. Normative backcasting, in particular, starts with a desired future and works backward to identify necessary actions—often revealing inconsistencies or gaps in current preferences.

3. Iterative and Reversible Decision Structures

Governance frameworks can allow for provisional decisions that are explicitly revisited as new information becomes available. Adaptive pathways planning, for example, maps out sequences of actions contingent on how the future unfolds, encouraging flexible commitment.

4. Contrasting Metrics and Evaluation Criteria

Introducing multiple and sometimes conflicting performance indicators prevents premature convergence on a single preference structure. For instance, using economic efficiency, social vulnerability, and ecological resilience as co-equal criteria forces decision makers to confront value conflicts.

5. Institutionalized Dissent and Role Rotation

Governance can mandate roles that question dominant perspectives—for example, assigning a “devil’s advocate” role or rotating leadership among stakeholder groups. This institutionalized challenge function helps destabilize homogeneous preferences and expands the range of considered options.

Example Continued

Returning to the urban climate adaptation example, consider a mid-sized coastal city facing increasing flood risk. The city council launches a planning initiative to design a 20-year adaptation strategy. Rather than seeking to stabilize preferences prematurely, the governance process is intentionally designed to foster constructive instability:

1. Deliberative Engagement: A city-wide adaptation forum is convened, including civil society organizations, environmental experts, local businesses, and vulnerable community representatives. The forum is tasked with articulating multiple visions of resilience and surfacing conflicting priorities.
2. Scenario Planning: Working groups develop divergent scenarios—e.g., “Managed Retreat,” “Green Retrofit,” and “Tech-Driven Fortification.” Each scenario reveals different implications for equity, investment, and land use, prompting participants to reconsider initial positions.
3. Iterative Planning Cycle: The city adopts a rolling planning model with formal review points every five years. Decisions are made with an understanding that they may be adjusted in light of new climate data, funding opportunities, or social feedback.
4. Multi-Criteria Evaluation: A composite decision-support tool is used to evaluate adaptation options along ecological, economic, and social dimensions. No single metric dominates, forcing stakeholders to grapple with trade-offs and revise priorities.
5. Challenge Roles: A rotating panel of community reviewers is empowered to critique proposals from the perspective of underrepresented groups. These panels routinely introduce dissenting viewpoints that reshape mainstream planning assumptions.

The result is not a single, optimized plan based on fixed preferences, but a robust, flexible strategy that evolves with stakeholder learning and environmental feedback. Decision governance, in this case, acts not to suppress preference instability, but to channel it toward productive ends.

References

• Ellsberg, D. (1961). Risk, ambiguity, and the Savage axioms. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 75(4), 643–669.
• Fischhoff, B. (1991). Value elicitation: Is there anything in there? American Psychologist, 46(8), 835–847.