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In solving choice problems under bounded rationality, one relies on "heuristics" provided by social interdependence. Such "heuristics" consist in taking a particular social group as a reference group and in emulating its life-style by acquiring an associated cluster of complementary wants. A preference map generated by this reference-group-taking behavior exhibits smooth indifference curves which are convex to the origin with a "relevant range" over which the marginal rate of substitution is positive and diminishing. However, its implications on consumer choice and welfare economics are significantly different from those of traditional theory.
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Hayakawa et al. (1977) studied this question.
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