Techniques for modeling the preferences of a decision-maker using sampled pair-wise preferences involve identifying a set of alternatives to be presented to the decision-maker and identifying a set of attributes associated the alternatives. The alternatives are each characterized by a set of values for the attributes. A sample set of pair-wise preferences among a subset of the alternatives is obtained and a model of preferences is generated by iteratively generating a set of candidate models and evaluating the candidate models using a fitness measure which is based on the sample set of pair-wise preferences. The models may take into account character attributes associated with potential decision-makers.