4 - THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECISION-MAKING
from PART I - THEORY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2009
Summary
INTRODUCTION
As we have already remarked, decision-making is a subject which attracts the attention of scholars in numbers of different disciplines. In practical fields where decision-making is a frequent and crucial activity, such as management, medicine, town planning or engineering, much has been written on the subject. The theoretical literature is even larger, however. Mathematicians have studied the implications of the axioms of decision theory; statisticians have been concerned with how to decide in the face of uncertainty; economists have studied how human decision-making causes, and is caused by, economic activity; philosophers have grappled with what it means to make rational decisions. It is to psychologists that we turn, however, for a consideration of some of the central questions of decision-making. These are:
(1) What causes us to make a decision? What are the determinants of decision-making?
and, more usefully:
(2) How can we make better decisions?
Psychologists have given considerable attention to these questions since the 1950s; the purpose of this chapter will be to describe some of this work and its implication for the practice of decision analysis.
Good reviews of the literature are available elsewhere (see Edwards 1961, Slovic et al. 1977, Einhorn and Hogarth 1981, Pitz and Sachs 1984 or Slovic et al. 1986).
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- Information
- Decision SynthesisThe Principles and Practice of Decision Analysis, pp. 81 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988