Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-r7xzm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T07:08:49.677Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - DESCRIPTIVE, NORMATIVE, AND PRESCRIPTIVE INTERACTIONS IN DECISION MAKING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2011

Get access

Summary

The focus of our attention is the individual decision maker facing a choice involving uncertainty about outcomes. We will consider how people do make decisions, how “rational” people should make decisions, and how we might help less rational people, who nevertheless aspire to rationality, to do better. When we speak of nonrational people, we do not mean those with diminished capacities; we refer instead to normal people who have not given thought to the process of decision making or, even if they have, are unable, cognitively, to implement the desired process. Our decision makers are not economic automatons; they make mistakes, have remorse, suffer anxieties, and cannot make up their minds. We start with a premise, not that people have well thought out preferences, but that they may be viewed as having divided minds with different aspirations, that decision making, even for the individual, is an act of compromise among the different selves.

For our purposes we shall augment the usual dichotomy that distinguishes between the normative and descriptive sides (the “ought” and the “is”) of decision making, by adding a third component: the prescriptive side. We do this because much of our concern in this paper addresses the question: “How can real people – as opposed to imaginary, idealized, super-rational people without psyches – make better choices in a way that does not do violence to their deep cognitive concerns?” And we find that much that we have to say on these matters does not fit conveniently into the usual normative or descriptive niches.

Type
Chapter
Information
Decision Making
Descriptive, Normative, and Prescriptive Interactions
, pp. 9 - 30
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×