That term isn’t “the” technical term. It’s a term from economics to try to explain apparently contradictory behaviors. Gee wiz, what a great explanation! “Peopl

That term isn’t “the” technical term. It’s a term from economics to try to explain apparently contradictory behaviors. Gee wiz, what a great explanation! “People just don’t actually prefer the things they say they prefer, even when they have far better reasons to prefer their stated preference over their revealed preference.” Now here’s the thing, when you actually ask someone actually amidst buying the dozen donuts if they’d prefer to have the donuts or to lose weight, they’ll tell you “to buy the donuts.” If you remind them of their goal to lose weight, they’ll shrug and say “yeah but that starts tomorrow,” or “oh well,” or “I’ll skip dinner later.” Why? Because it’s not actually the case they are behaving against their preferences. It’s that their preferences are alternating as different rewards approach on different time horizons. “Revealed vs stated preferences” is the laziest frictionless spherical cow explanation of human behavior ever crafted.