Utility, Probability, and Human Decision Making : Selected Proceedings of an Interdisciplinary Research Conference, Rome, 3–6 September, 1973

Human decision making involves problems which are being studied with increasing interest and sophistication. They range from controversial political decisions via individual consumer decisions to such simple tasks as signal discriminations. Although it would seem that decisions have to do with choices among available actions of any kind, there is general agreement that decision making research should pertain to choice prob­ lems which cannot be solved without a predecisional stage of finding choice alternatives, weighing evidence, and judging values. The ultimate objective of scientific research on decision making is two-fold: (a) to develop a theoretically sound technology for the optimal solution of decision problems, and (b) to formulate a descriptive theory of human decision making. The latter may, in tum, protect decision makers from being caught in the traps of their own limitations and biases. Recently, in decision making research the strong emphasis on well­ defined laboratory tasks is decreasing in favour of more realistic studies in various practical settings. This may well have been caused by a growing awareness of the fact that decision-behaviour is strongly determined by situational factors, which makes it necessary to look into processes of interaction between the decision maker and the relevant task environ­ ment. Almost inevitably there is a parallel shift of interest towards problems of utility measurement and the evaluation of consequences. Front Matter....Pages I-VIII Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Editors’ Introduction....Pages 3-5 Experimental Applications of Multi-Attribute Utility Models....Pages 7-46 Multi-Attribute Utility Theory: Models and Assessment Procedures....Pages 47-85 How We can Use the Notion of Semi-Orders to Build Outranking Relations in Multi-Criteria Decision Making....Pages 87-112 Multi-Criteria Decision Making: Comments on Jacquet-Lagrèze’s Paper....Pages 113-117 An Investigation of Subjective Preference Orderings for Multi-Attributed Alternatives....Pages 119-133 Front Matter....Pages 135-135 Editors’ Introduction....Pages 137-140 Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases....Pages 141-162 A Structural Theory of Uncertain Knowledge....Pages 163-176 Subjective Probability Forecasting: Some Real World Experiments....Pages 177-198 A Three-Step Procedure for Assigning Probabilities to Rare Events....Pages 199-216 Front Matter....Pages 217-217 Editors’ Introduction....Pages 219-221 Probabilities and the Law....Pages 223-232 Probabilistic Analysis of Identification Evidence....Pages 233-256 Juror Decisions and the Determination of Guilt in Capital Punishment Cases: A Bayesian Perspective....Pages 257-269 Front Matter....Pages 271-271 Editors’ Introduction....Pages 273-277 Utility, Welfare and Probability: An Unorthodox Economist’s View....Pages 279-295 Search Behavior in Non-Simultaneous Choice Situations: Satisficing or Maximizing?....Pages 297-320 Decision Time as a Function of Task Complexity....Pages 321-338 Decision Time and Task Complexity: Comments on Hogarth’s Paper....Pages 339-343 Front Matter....Pages 345-345 Editors’ Introduction....Pages 347-348 Research Paradigms for Studying Dynamic Decision Behavior....Pages 349-369 Dynamic Decision Behavior: Comments on Rapoport’s Paper....Pages 371-375 Front Matter....Pages 377-377 Editors’ Introduction....Pages 379-379 Some Observations on Theories of Collective Decisions....Pages 381-395 The Use of Decision Analysis in the Public Sector....Pages 397-407 Back Matter....Pages 409-419