Models of Decision Making under Risk and Uncertainty

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Pleskac ◽  
Adele Diederich ◽  
Thomas S. Wallsten
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Choice Behavior ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Risk And Uncertainty ◽  
Decision Making Under Risk ◽  
Decision Field Theory ◽  
Actual Choice ◽  
Human Decision

Formal models have a long and important history in the study of human decision-making. They have served as normative standards against which to compare real choices, as well as precise descriptions of actual choice behavior. This chapter begins with an overview of the historical development of decision theory and rational choice theory and then reviews how models have been used in their normative and descriptive capacities. Models covered include prospect theory, rank- and sign-dependent utility theories and their descendants, as well as cognitive models of human decision-making like Decision Field Theory and the Leaky Competing Accumulator Model, which are based on basic psychological principles rather than assumptions of rationality.

Complexity, Bounded Rationality and Heuristic Search

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Bentley MacLeod
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Heuristic Search ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Heuristic Function ◽  
Heuristic Search Algorithms ◽  
Human Decision

Abstract This paper explores the use of heuristic search algorithms for modeling human decision making. It is shown that this algorithm is consistent with many observed behavioral regularities, and may help explain deviations from rational choice. The main insight is that the heuristic function can be viewed as formal implementation of one aspect of emotion as discussed in Descarte's Error by Antonio Damasio. Consistent with Damasio's observations, it is shown that the quality of decision making is very sensitive to the nature of the heuristic ("emotion"), and hence this may help us better understand the role of emotion in rational choice theory.

The Oxford Handbook of Offender Decision Making

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Core Element ◽  
Sexual Crime ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Human Decision

How offenders make decisions that lead to criminal conduct is a core element of virtually every discussion about crime and law enforcement. What type of information can deter a potential offender? For whom is the prospect of a sanction effective? How can emotions facilitate or impede crime? How does the availability of guns affect behavior in violent conflicts? Do offenders learn to commit crime from the experiences of others? Is crime perpetrated by juveniles always the result of impulsive decisions? How do offenders choose crime targets and locations? The Oxford Handbook of Offender Decision Making covers and integrates contemporary theoretical, methodological, and empirical knowledge about the role of human decision making as it relates to criminal behavior. It provides state-of-the art reviews of the main paradigms in offender decision making, such as rational choice theory and deterrence, but also includes recent approaches such as dual-process models of decision making. It contains up-to-date reviews of empirical research on a wide range of decision types, from criminal initiation and desistance to choice of location, time, target, victim, and modus operandi. It also contains reviews of decision making regarding specific types of crime, including homicide, sexual crime, burglary, and white-collar and organized crime. In addition, it includes comprehensive in-depth treatments of the principal research methods used to study offender decision making, such as experimental designs, observation studies, surveys, offender interviews, and simulations.

Emotional Choices

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Markwica
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Choice Behavior ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Cuban Missile Crisis ◽  
Coercive Diplomacy ◽  
The Core ◽  
Present Book ◽  
Action Model ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Dynamic Interplay

In coercive diplomacy, states threaten military action to persuade opponents to change their behavior. The goal is to achieve a target’s compliance without incurring the cost in blood and treasure of military intervention. Coercers typically employ this strategy toward weaker actors, but targets often refuse to submit and the parties enter into war. To explain these puzzling failures of coercive diplomacy, existing accounts generally refer to coercers’ perceived lack of resolve or targets’ social norms and identities. What these approaches either neglect or do not examine systematically is the role that emotions play in these encounters. The present book contends that target leaders’ affective experience can shape their decision-making in significant ways. Drawing on research in psychology and sociology, the study introduces an additional, emotion-based action model besides the traditional logics of consequences and appropriateness. This logic of affect, or emotional choice theory, posits that target leaders’ choice behavior is influenced by the dynamic interplay between their norms, identities, and five key emotions, namely fear, anger, hope, pride, and humiliation. The core of the action model consists of a series of propositions that specify the emotional conditions under which target leaders are likely to accept or reject a coercer’s demands. The book applies the logic of affect to Nikita Khrushchev’s decision-making during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and Saddam Hussein’s choice behavior in the Gulf conflict in 1990–91, offering a novel explanation for why coercive diplomacy succeeded in one case but not in the other.

Cognitive Biases in Decision Making in Post-Bureaucratic Organizations

2017 ◽  
pp. 358-382
Author(s):  
Marie-Therese Claes ◽  
Thibault Jacquemin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Behavioral Economics ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Bureaucratic Organization ◽  
System 2 ◽  
System 1

In today's post-bureaucratic organization, where decision-making is decentralized, most managers are confronted with highly complex situations where time-constraint and availability of information makes the decision-making process essential. Studies show that a great amount of decisions are not taken after a rational decision-making process but rather rely on instinct, emotion or quickly processed information. After briefly describing the journey of thoughts from Rational Choice Theory to the emergence of Behavioral Economics, this chapter will elaborate on the mechanisms that are at play in decision-making in an attempt to understand the root causes of cognitive biases, using the theory of Kahneman's (2011) System 1 and System 2. It will discuss the linkage between the complexity of decision-making and post-bureaucratic organization.

The Power of Sequence

2021 ◽  
pp. 309-326
Author(s):  
Christopher Brett Jaeger ◽  
Jennifer S. Trueblood
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Criminal Case ◽  
Choice Architecture ◽  
Intellectual Origins ◽  
Rational Decisions

Researchers have documented numerous cognitive biases that are difficult to reconcile with rational choice theory. But is there a more general set of decision-making rules that might account for these cognitive biases and ‘rational’ decisions alike? Psychologists in search of such rules have developed a theory of quantum decision making. This chapter introduces quantum decision making to a legal audience, explains its intellectual origins, and identifies some contexts in which it provides useful tools for legal theorists. Using the example of a juror evaluating a criminal case, the chapter illustrates how quantum decision making explains and predicts phenomena that are difficult to reconcile with other theories of choice. More generally, quantum decision making highlights the importance of sequence in shaping judgments and decisions—and thus, its importance in law’s choice architecture.

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