How to transfer preferences from one machine to another?

Is there a way to transfer my various preferences configured on Machine A to a new Machine B?

For example, I would like to transfer many of the preferences configured within System Preferences and native applications, such as Finder.

The easiest way to do this would be to use Migration Assistant. If you transfer your settings when you first setup your Mac, you can run the Migration Assistant to transfer the settings for you.

Directly from Apple: OS X Mavericks: Transfer your info from a computer or disk

I went with Mavericks because it is fairly recent and the procedure is the same in Yosemite.