Decision Making: Descriptive, Normative, and Prescriptive Interactions

by Edited by David E. Bell , Howard Raiffa , Amos Tversky

• ISBN13: 9780521368513
• ISBN10: 0521368510
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1988-10-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The analysis of decision making under uncertainty has again become a major focus of interest. This volume presents contributions from leading specialists in different fields and provides a summary and synthesis of work in this area. It is based on a conference held at the Harvard Business School. The book brings together the different approaches to decision making - normative, descriptive, and prescriptive - which largely correspond to different disciplinary interests. Mathematicians have concentrated on rational procedures for decision making - how people should make decisions. Psychologists have examined how poeple do make decisions, and how far their behaviour is compatible with any rational model. Operations researchers study the application of decision models to actual problems. Throughout, the aim is to present the current state of research and its application and also to show how the different disciplinary approaches can inform one another and thus lay the foundations for the integrated analysis of decision making. The book will be of interest to researchers, teachers - for use as background reading for a decision theory course - students, and consultants and others involved in the practical application of the analysis of decision making. It will be of interest to specialists and students in statistics, mathematics, economics, psychology and the behavioural sciences, operations research, and management science.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part I. Overview Paper: 1. Descriptive, normative, and prescriptive interactions in decision making David E. Bell, Howard Raiffa, and Amos Tversky

Part II. Conceptions of Choice: 2. Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice James G. March

3. Rationality as process and as product of thought Herbert A. Simon

4. Normative theories of decision making under risk and under uncertainty P. C. Fishburn

5. Risky choice revisited David E. Bell, and Howard Raiffa

6. Behavioral decision theory: processes of judgment and choice Hillel J. Einhorn, and Robin M. Hogarth

7. Reply to commentaries Hillel J. Einhorn, and Robin M. Hogarth

8. Response mode, framing, and information-processing effects in risk assessment Paul Slovic, Baruch Fischhoff, and Sarah Lichetenstein

9. Rational choice and the framing of decisions Amos Tversky, and Daniel Kahneman

10. Savage revisited Glenn Shafer

Part III. Beliefs and Judgments about Uncertainties: 11. Languages and decisions for probability judgment Glenn Shafer, and Amos Tversky

12. Updating subjective probability Persi Diaconis, and Sandy L. Zabell

13. Probability, evidence, and judgment A. P. Dempster

14. The effects of statistical training on thinking about everyday problems Geoffrey T. Fong, David H. Krantz, and Richard E. Nisbett

Part IV. Values and Utilities: 15. The mind as a consuming organ T. C. Schelling

16. Disappointment in decision making under uncertainty David E. Bell

17. Marginal value and intrinsic risk aversion David E. Bell, and Howard Raiffa

18. Knowing what you want: measuring labile values Baruch Fischhoff, Paul Slovic, and Sarah Lichetenstein

19. Sources of bias in assessment procedures for utility functions John C. Hershey, Howard C. Kunreuther, and Paul J. H. Schoemaker

20. Simplicity in decision analysis: an example and a discussion Ward Edwards, Detlof von Winterfeldt, and David L. Moody

21. Value-focused thinking and the study of values Ralph L. Keeney

Part V. Areas of Application: 22. Behaviour under uncertainty and its implications for policy Kenneth J. Arrow

23. The relevance of quasi rationality in competitive markets Thomas Russell, and Richard Thaler

24. How senior managers think Daniel J. Isenberg

25. Problems in producing usable knowledge for implementing liberating alternatives Chris Argyris

26. On the framing of medical decisions Barbara J. McNeil, Stephen G. Pauker, and Amos Tversky

27. Whether or not to administer amphotericin to an immunosuppressed patient with hematologic malignancy and undiagnosed fever Jonathan E. Gottlieb, and Stephen G. Pauker

28. The effect of private attitudes on public policy: prenatal screening for neural tube defects as a prototype Stephen G. Pauker, Susan P. Pauker, and Barbar J. McNeil

29. Discussion agenda for the session on medical decision making and minutes of a group discussion clinical decision making Milton C. Weinstein, (moderator), and Harvey V. Fineberg, Barbara J. McNeil, and Stephen G. Pauker (discussion rapporteur Robert J. Quinn).