Cognitive Processes in Choice and Decision Behavior

Decision theory is a uniquely interdisciplinary field of study with contributions from economics, statistics, mathematics, philosophy, operations research, and psychology. The 1970s had seen important changes in research on behavioral decision theory in terms of a shift from a reliance on economic and statistical models to an emphasis on concepts drawn from cognitive psychology. Originally published in 1980, Cognitive Processes in Choice and Decision Behavior contains papers that explore the reasons why these changes had come about and discuss the future directions to which they pointed. It was clear at the time that research in behavioral decision theory was changing dramatically. The chapters in this book represent a good assessment of the reasons the changes were coming about and some of the merits and problems of the directions in which it was moving. Today it can be read in its historical context.

Thomas S. Wallsten

Preface. 1. Learning from Experience and Suboptimal Rules in Decision Making Hillel J. Einhorn 2. On the External Validity of Decision-Making Research: What Do We Know About Decisions in the Real World? Ebbe B. Ebbesen and Vladimir J. Konecni 3. Decisions That Might Not Get Made Ruth M. Corbin 4. Analyzing Decision Behavior: The Magician's Audience John S. Carroll 5. The Very Guide of Life: The Use of Probabilistic Information for Making Decisions Gordon F. Pitz 6. Information Processing Theory: Some Concepts and Methods Applied to Decision Research John W. Payne 7. Knowing What You Want: Measuring Labile Values Baruch Fischhoff, Paul Slovic and Sarah Lichtenstein 8. Know, Then Decide Gregory R. Lockhead 9. Real Money Lotteries: A Study of Ideal Risk, Context Effects, and Simple Processes Kenneth R. MacCrimmon, William T. Stanbury and Donald A. Wehrung 10. Current Developments in Research on Cascaded Inference Processes David A. Schum 11. Comments on the Chapters by MacCrimmon, Stanbury, and Wehrung; and Schum R. Duncan Luce 12. Processes and Models to Describe Choice and Inference Behavior Thomas S. Wallsten 13. Process Models of Probabilistic Categorization Michael Kobovy and Alice F. Healy 14. Comments on Directions and Limitations of Current Efforts Toward Theories of Decision Making William K. Estes. Author Index. Subject Index.