Introduction

We have provided a view of adaptive decision making over the previous several chapters that focuses on considerations of accuracy and cognitive effort. This perspective has helped us to understand when decision makers are adaptive and when they may go astray (see chapter 6) and provides us with a framework for considering how to aid decision makers. For example, we have argued that some exact operators for integrating information, such as addition or multiplication, are often quite difficult, whereas other operations, such as comparisons, are relatively easy. In addition, implementation of some strategies may be more error prone than others, given the difficulty of the task. Our perspective, therefore, suggests that we can improve decisions by creating a better match between task demands and the information-processing capabilities and preferences of the decision maker. We can improve that match by helping to reduce the effort required and/or by helping the decision maker increase the accuracy of the choice.

One way we can encourage decision makers to be more normative (more precisely reflect their values and beliefs) is by reducing the cognitive effort demands of the task. That is, complex decision problems can be restructured to make them easier for the decision maker. For example, the basic divide-and-conquer approach of decision analysis is an attempt to reduce cognitive effort in complex multivariate decision problems by asking for simpler judgments (Slovic, Fischhoff, & Lichtenstein, 1977).