Do Economists Recognize an Opportunity Cost When They See One? A Dismal Performance from the Dismal Science

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J Ferraro ◽  
Laura O Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Graduate Education ◽  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
Graduate Training ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Economic Reasoning ◽  
Introductory Economics

Abstract One expects people with graduate training in economics to have a deeper understanding of economic processes and reasoning than people without such training. However, as others have noted over the past 25 years, modern graduate education may emphasize mathematics and technique to the detriment of economic reasoning. One of the most important contributions economics has to offer as a discipline is the understanding of opportunity cost and how to apply this concept to all forms of decision making. We examine how PhD economists answer an introductory economics textbook question that requires identifying the relevant opportunity cost of an action. The results are not consistent with our expectation that graduate training leads to a deeper understanding of the concept. We explore the implications of our results for the relevance of economists in policy, research, and teaching.

Truth Matters: Cognitive Integrity as an Intervention for Self-Deception

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenia Isabel Gorlin ◽  
Michael W. Otto
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Therapeutic Interventions ◽  
Empirical Validation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adaptive Problem

To live well in the present, we take direction from the past. Yet, individuals may engage in a variety of behaviors that distort their past and current circumstances, reducing the likelihood of adaptive problem solving and decision making. In this article, we attend to self-deception as one such class of behaviors. Drawing upon research showing both the maladaptive consequences and self-perpetuating nature of self-deception, we propose that self-deception is an understudied risk and maintaining factor for psychopathology, and we introduce a “cognitive-integrity”-based approach that may hold promise for increasing the reach and effectiveness of our existing therapeutic interventions. Pending empirical validation of this theoretically-informed approach, we posit that patients may become more informed and autonomous agents in their own therapeutic growth by becoming more honest with themselves.

Evidence-based Assessment

2010 ◽  
pp. 76-98
Author(s):  
John Hunsley ◽  
Eric J. Mash
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Clinical Assessment ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
The Past ◽  
Specific Assessment ◽  
The Many ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Made In

Evidence-based assessment relies on research and theory to inform the selection of constructs to be assessed for a specific assessment purpose, the methods and measures to be used in the assessment, and the manner in which the assessment process unfolds. An evidence-based approach to clinical assessment necessitates the recognition that, even when evidence-based instruments are used, the assessment process is a decision-making task in which hypotheses must be iteratively formulated and tested. In this chapter, we review (a) the progress that has been made in developing an evidence-based approach to clinical assessment in the past decade and (b) the many challenges that lie ahead if clinical assessment is to be truly evidence-based.

A Big Thank You to our Reviewers in the Past Year!

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (02) ◽  
pp. 191-195
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
The Past

Good reviewers are essential to the success of any journal and peer review is a major pillar of science. We are grateful to those mentioned below to have dedicated their time and expertise to help our authors improve and refine their manuscripts and support the Editor(s) in the decision making process in the past year.

Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights: Four Realms of Discussion: Summary of Remarks

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 242-245
Author(s):  
Jootaek Lee
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
The Past ◽  
Making Choices ◽  
Data Capturing ◽  
Intensive Procedures

The term, Artificial Intelligence (AI), has changed since it was first coined by John MacCarthy in 1956. AI, believed to have been created with Kurt Gödel's unprovable computational statements in 1931, is now called deep learning or machine learning. AI is defined as a computer machine with the ability to make predictions about the future and solve complex tasks, using algorithms. The AI algorithms are enhanced and become effective with big data capturing the present and the past while still necessarily reflecting human biases into models and equations. AI is also capable of making choices like humans, mirroring human reasoning. AI can help robots to efficiently repeat the same labor intensive procedures in factories and can analyze historic and present data efficiently through deep learning, natural language processing, and anomaly detection. Thus, AI covers a spectrum of augmented intelligence relating to prediction, autonomous intelligence relating to decision making, automated intelligence for labor robots, and assisted intelligence for data analysis.

Neuroscience: The New English Major?

2021 ◽  
pp. 107385842110039
Author(s):  
Kristin F. Phillips ◽  
Harald Sontheimer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Graduate Education ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Undergraduate Curriculum ◽  
Virginia Tech ◽  
Bachelor's Degree ◽  
State University ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
English Major ◽  
The Brain

Once strictly the domain of medical and graduate education, neuroscience has made its way into the undergraduate curriculum with over 230 colleges and universities now offering a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience. The disciplinary focus on the brain teaches students to apply science to the understanding of human behavior, human interactions, sensation, emotions, and decision making. In this article, we encourage new and existing undergraduate neuroscience programs to envision neuroscience as a broad discipline with the potential to develop competencies suitable for a variety of careers that reach well beyond research and medicine. This article describes our philosophy and illustrates a broad-based undergraduate degree in neuroscience implemented at a major state university, Virginia Tech. We highlight the fact that the research-centered Experimental Neuroscience major is least popular of our four distinct majors, which underscores our philosophy that undergraduate neuroscience can cater to a different audience than traditionally thought.

scholarly journals How Does Governance Influence Decision Making on Projects and in Project-Based Organizations?

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (6) ◽  
pp. 670-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Turner
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Project Management ◽  
Organizational Psychology ◽  
Project Performance ◽  
The Past

Research on the governance of project management suggests governmentality and governance are associated with improved project performance. However, the mechanism is unknown. We propose that they influence decision making, which, in turn, improves performance. Few articles on governance comment directly on how governance influences decision making. We identify six areas of organizational psychology that influence decision making, and study what research on the governance of project management suggests about how governance influences those six areas. We review 36 articles on the governance of project management published in the past six years in the three main journals in project management.

Decision making: How the past guides the future in frontal cortex

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. R303-R306
Author(s):  
Bharath Chandra Talluri ◽  
Anke Braun ◽  
T.H. Donner
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Frontal Cortex ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

DEATH AT HOME

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-78
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Parental Involvement ◽  
Neonatal Care ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Past ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
At Home

Paediatricians responsible for neonatal care have been increasingly involved in, and aware of, the importance of parent infant interactions. These interactions are of major importance when concerned with the dying newborn. Over the past few years parental involvement in decision making related to life and death of newborn babies is becoming increasingly accepted ... more and more parents are opting to take their baby home to die. As changing patterns of birthing increasingly involve fathers and children, so death is once again becoming a family affair.

scholarly journals Therapeutic Abortion and Psychiatric Disturbance in Canadian Women

1976 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 453-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther R. Greenglass
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Psychiatric History ◽  
Legal Abortion ◽  
Therapeutic Abortion ◽  
Psychiatric Disturbance ◽  
The Past ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Psychiatric Problems

Summary The majority of one hundred and eighty-eight women interviewed after having legal, therapeutic abortions did not experience psychiatric disturbance. While women with a psychiatric history were more likely than their more mentally healthy counterparts to experience some psychiatric disturbance afterwards, the majority of those with psychiatric problems in the past appeared to be coping reasonably well afterwards. It was pointed out that factors and circumstances other than the abortion itself, but occurring around the same time, may constitute reasons for the subsequent appearance of psychiatric disturbance, such as suicide attempts. Finally, the grounds for legal abortion in Canada were questioned — particularly the artificial practice of compartmentalizing and labeling reasons for abortion as psychiatric and non-psychiatric. While such practices may facilitate the decision-making processes involved in reviewing applications for abortion, they do not take account of the full range of human and social need.

scholarly journals Application of EIA/SEA system in land use planning: Experience from Serbia

Spatium ◽  
2005 ◽  
pp. 18-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bozidar Stojanovic
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Scientific Validity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Current Assessment ◽  
Eu Directives ◽  
Assessment Procedures ◽  
Effective Integration

This paper discusses the experience and current status of EIA/SEA procedures and assessment methodologies in Serbia, aiming to propose strategies that can lead to effective integration of the SEA in spatial planning. Institutional and practical problems with regard to the regulations of EIA/SEA were considered. Experience from the past decade shows that implementation of EIA system in Serbia has not been effective as expected. New legislation on EIA and SEA is harmonized with corresponding EU Directives. First steps in the application of the SEA show that the main issues are screening, scooping and decision making. According to the research results, it is suggested that extra evaluation processes should be incorporated into current assessment procedures to improve their scientific validity and integrity.

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