This book provides a unified treatment of our research and related research on models of individual choice drawn from economics, psychology, and behavioral biology. The unique aspect of this research from the perspective of economics is its use of laboratory experimental methods and nonhuman subjects to study economic choice theory. The unique aspect of the research from the perspective of psychology is its application of economic concepts to the analysis of individual behavior.

The book is intended for economists, psychologists, and behavioral biologists. It includes a brief, self-contained exposition of the relevant theoretical concepts and relationships for each substantive research area covered. These sections rely on graphical methods with limited algebraic derivations. The book is written at the level of an intermediate to upper-level undergraduate price theory text in economics or a learning text in psychology.

Significant parts of the book are based on a series of published papers. We have expanded upon these by including relevant data from a number of previously unpublished studies of our own, and by analyzing data from our earlier experiments in ways that we had thought about for some time but had never gotten around to, and by establishing clear connections between our work and related research in psychology and biology. Finally, the book has provided a focus for closing some of the more obvious gaps in our analyses.

Acknowledgments

From its inception, the research has been supported by a series of grants from the National Science Foundation, with additional funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health. We are most grateful for this support.