You can accomplish by adding a Before commit event to the entity. This will trigger a microflow where you can do this retrieve and add an exclusive split. If it doesnt exist, return true, and if it does exist return false. If you return false in this microflow it wont commit the object.
To do the check to see if the preference is the same, you would check the field that says "pass event object" , and that will be your parameter of the microflow. You can retrieve all the applications associated to that user, and the use the list operation find to see if there is a duplicate (If the list operation returns an object then there is a duplicate).
Alternatively, instead of using an event handler you can use a microflow as a custom save button. In the microflow you can do the duplicate check, and show a message to the user.
Here is the documentation for event handlers and list operations.
https://docs.mendix.com/refguide/event-handlers
https://docs.mendix.com/refguide/list-operation