For Kay Afar, one way of assigning utility to an apple gives a number of 12. Another way gives a number of 30. The first way of assigning utility gives a number of 36 for a banana; the other way gives a number of 217. Either way, Kay chooses the banana. What kind of utility is illustrated by this example?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This example illustrates ordinal utility, as Kay is simply ranking the options based on their relative value to each other instead of assigning specific numerical values to each option. The actual numbers given for each option are arbitrary and do not hold any intrinsic meaning.

For Kay Afar, One Way of Assigning Utility to an Apple