{
  "abstract": "Understanding dissatisfaction in social decision-making is important for diagnosing structural features of collective outcomes that may be informative about differences in acceptance and cohesion. Existing electoral metrics typically focus on satisfaction or utility, overlooking dissatisfaction as an independent and socially meaningful factor. We introduce ElecMeter, a novel index for single-winner elections that defines voter dissatisfaction as the normalized rank of the elected candidate and incorporates both average and distributional features. A divergence-based component compares the observed distribution to benchmarks of maximal dissatisfaction, polarization, and neutrality using Jensen–Shannon divergence. Scores are aggregated via a generalized mean controlling sensitivity to extreme dissatisfaction. Simulations show that ElecMeter distinguishes electorates with similar average dissatisfaction but different distributional structures. Applied to the classic Breakfast Items dataset, ElecMeter consistently identifies winners across parameter settings and aligns with several classical voting rules, demonstrating internal robustness of the index. All code and data are available on GitHub, ensuring reproducibility.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "School of Biological Sciences, Institute For Research In Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran, Tehran, Iran",
    "Pegah Dadekavan Sharif Company (TAPSELL), Tehran, Tehran, Iran",
    "Medical Genetics, National Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Tehran, Tehran, Iran"
  ],
  "article_type": "Research Article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 4,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Maryam Shahdoust"
    },
    {
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        1
      ],
      "name": "Zahra Eidi"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Rouzbeh Torabi"
    },
    {
      "name": "Mehdi Sadeghi"
    }
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  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/ds552prwvey8h.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1371/journal.pone.0354798",
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  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
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  "native_subjects": [
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      "openalex",
      "2002|Game Theory and Voting Systems"
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      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Neuroscience/Cognitive science/Cognition/Decision making"
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      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Neuroscience/Cognitive science/Cognitive psychology/Decision making"
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      "plos",
      "/Social sciences/Political science/Elections"
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      "plos",
      "/Social sciences/Political science/Political theory"
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      "plos",
      "/Social sciences/Psychology/Cognitive psychology/Decision making"
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  "pdf_url": "https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0354798&type=printable",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-11",
  "publisher": "Public Library of Science",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/ds552prwvey8h.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:56Z",
      "native_id": "10.1371/journal.pone.0354798",
      "source": "plos",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0354798"
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  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "plos:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    },
    {
      "field": "mathematics",
      "origin": "plos:probability theory",
      "subfield": "probability"
    }
  ],
  "title": "ElecMeter: An index for evaluating dissatisfaction of social decision-making",
  "title_text": "ElecMeter: An index for evaluating dissatisfaction of social decision-making",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:56Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/ds552prwvey8h",
  "venue": "PLOS One",
  "versions": []
}