Rational decision makers have transitive preferences. This means that if a decision maker prefers alternative A over alternative B and prefers alternative B over alternative C, it must be that he or she prefers A over C (the symbol “>“ means “preferred to”): So A > B and B > C implies A > C However, even when all group members are rational, group preferences can be non-transitive. That is, for groups, A > B and B > C does not necessarily mean that A > C!
