Comment Re:I think they were just bored (Score 1) 225
An `irrational' person would answer (Yes, No, Yes), or (No, Yes, No).
Actually those answers could be perfectly rational depending on how hungry you are, how much cash is in your wallet, and which fast food restaurants are within walking distance.
I'm not sure if you're being pedantic, I'll assume you're not. Yes, that's true, rationality (complete and transitive preferences) is different from what they're testing. They're saying inconsistent without providing a baseline. The example I gave is one equating rationality to having a monotonic marginal utility for wealth gains, which is a pretty weak assumption as economics goes, I think it's weaker than the example given in the news article, which is an argument for prospect theory.