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Decision Making and Rationality in the Modern World

Author: Keith E. Stanovich

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13:

In Decision Making and Rationality in the Modern World, Keith E. Stanovich demonstrates how work in the cognitive psychology of decision making has implications for the large and theoretically contentious debates about the nature of human rationality. Written specifically for undergraduate psychology students, the book presents a very practical approach to decision making, which is too often perceived by students as an artificial set of skills used only in academia and not in the real world. Instead, Stanovich shows how good decision-making procedures support rational behavior that enables people to act most efficiently to fulfill their goals. He explains how the concept of rationality is understood in cognitive science in terms of good decision making and judgment. Books in the Fundamentals of Cognition series serve as ideal instructional resources for advanced courses in cognitive psychology. They provide an up-to-date, well-organized survey of our current understanding of the major theories of cognitive psychology. The books are concise, which allows instructors to incorporate the latest original research and readings into their courses without overburdening their students. Focused without being too advanced--and comprehensive without being too broad--these books are the perfect resource for both students and instructors.

Rational Choice in an Uncertain World

Author: Reid Hastie

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1412959039

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In the Second Edition of Rational Choice in an Uncertain World the authors compare the basic principles of rationality with actual behaviour in making decisions. They describe theories and research findings from the field of judgment and decision making in a non-technical manner, using anecdotes as a teaching device. Intended as an introductory textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, the material not only is of scholarly interest but is practical as well. The Second Edition includes: - more coverage on the role of emotions, happiness, and general well-being in decisions - a summary of the new research on the neuroscience of decision processes - more discussion of the adaptive value of (non-rational heuristics) - expansion of the graphics for decision trees, probability trees, and Venn diagrams.

Rational Decision-Making

Author: Hamid Noorani

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2010-04-16

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 146912453X

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RATIONAL DECISION-MAKING For a Brighter FutureFor the Love of the World This book shows youthrough examples and application exerciseshow to make rational decisions that will make you more productive. Based on the modern philosophy of Systems-Thinking, the book presents a well-defined path to living a productive life: making rational choices that will help you meet your long-term goals and fulfill your obligations to others. To assist you, the book provides tools and concepts you can use to set your objectives, identify and weigh the options, and evaluate the expected benefits. And the many thought-provoking, real-life situations will show you how to craft strategic initiativeswhether in individual, group, organizational, or public policy decisions.

Rationality and the Environment

Author: Bo Elling

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-05-04

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1136559167

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Environmental assessment and management involve the production of scientific knowledge and its use in decision-making processes. The result is that within these essentially rational, political assessment frameworks, experts are creating and applying scientific knowledge for decision and management purposes that actually have strong ethical and aesthetic dimensions. Yet these rational political frameworks lack the tools to provide guidance on ethical and aesthetic issues that affect the wider public. This revolutionary work argues that ethical and aesthetic dimensions can only be brought into environmental politics and policies by citizens actively taking a stand on the specific matters in question. The author draws on Habermas trisection of rationality as cognitive-instrumental, moral-practical and aesthetic-expressive, to suggest that truly effective environmental policy needs to activate all three approaches and not favour only the rational. To achieve this objective, the author argues that public participation in environmental policy and assessment is necessary to counteract the dictatorship of technical and economic instrumentality in environmental policy - the failure to take ethical and aesthetic rationalities into account - and, more importantly, how such policy is applied on the ground to shape our natural and material world.

Rational Choice in an Uncertain World

Author: Reid Hastie

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2001-04-13

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 9780761922759

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First Edition, Winner of the prestigious William James Award from the American Psychological Association An understanding of the principles of rational decision making can help students improve the quality of their lives. Intended as an introductory textbook, the material in Rational Choice in an Uncertain World is not only of scholarly interest, but practical as well. Created specifically for courses on judgement and decision-making, this book makes research readily accessible to both undergraduate and graduate students. This Second Edition of the award-winning book, Rational Choice in an Uncertain World (1988) by Robyn M. Dawes, is sure to interest and enlighten students at all levels. This new edition features: · New student friendly chapter introductions as well as conclusions and cross-references between chapters. · Award-winning authors are respected professors with over 30 years of experience in the field. · Practical, everyday examples from such areas as finance, medicine, law, and engineering. · Comprehensive and up-to-date information keep this edition abreast of the changing ideas within the discipline · Additional discussion of the descriptive, psychological models of decision making to expand upon the original emphasis on normative, rational, `Expected Utility Theory′ models. Equipped with this knowledge and an understanding of the principles of rational decision making, both undergraduate and graduate students can help improve the quality of their choices and, thus, their life.

Simply Rational

Author: Gerd Gigerenzer

Publisher: Evolution and Cognition

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 019939007X

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Statistical illiteracy can have an enormously negative impact on decision making. This volume of collected papers brings together applied and theoretical research on risks and decision making across the fields of medicine, psychology, and economics. Collectively, the essays demonstrate why the frame in which statistics are communicated is essential for broader understanding and sound decision making, and that understanding risks and uncertainty has wide-reaching implications for daily life. Gerd Gigerenzer provides a lucid review and catalog of concrete instances of heuristics, or rules of thumb, that people and animals rely on to make decisions under uncertainty, explaining why these are very often more rational than probability models. After a critical look at behavioral theories that do not model actual psychological processes, the book concludes with a call for a heuristic revolution that will enable us to understand the ecological rationality of both statistics and heuristics, and bring a dose of sanity to the study of rationality.

Real-Life Decision-Making

Author: Mats Danielson

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2023-08-08

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 1000936899

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Have you ever experienced a decision situation that was hard to come to grips with? Did you ever feel a need to improve your decision-making skills? Is this something where you feel that you have not learned enough practical and useful methods? In that case, you are not alone! Even though decision-making is both considered and actually is a very important skill in modern work-life as well as in private life, these skills are not to any reasonable extent taught in schools at any level. No wonder many people do indeed feel the need to improve but have a hard time finding out how. This book is an attempt to remedy this shortcoming of our educational systems and possibly also of our common, partly intuition-based, decision culture. Intuition is not at all bad, quite the contrary, but it has to co-exist with rationality. We will show you how. Methods for decision-making should be of prime concern to any individual or organisation, even if the decision processes are not always explicitly or even consciously formulated. All kinds of organisations, as well as individuals, must continuously make decisions of the most varied nature in order to prosper and attain their objectives. A large part of the time spent in any organisation, not least at management levels, is spent gathering, processing, and compiling information for the purpose of making decisions supported by that information. The same interest has hitherto not been shown for individual decision-making, even though large gains would also be obtained at a personal level if important personal decisions were better deliberated. This book aims at changing that and thus attends to both categories of decision-makers. This book will take you through a journey starting with some history of decision-making and analysis and then go through easy-to-learn ways of structuring decision information and methods for analysing the decision situations, beginning with simple decision situations and then moving on to progressively harder ones, but never losing sight of the overarching goal that the reader should be able to follow the progression and being able to carry out similar decision analyses in real-life situations. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The Rationality Quotient

Author: Keith E. Stanovich

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2016-09-30

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 0262034840

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How to assess critical aspects of cognitive functioning that are not measured by IQ tests: rational thinking skills. Why are we surprised when smart people act foolishly? Smart people do foolish things all the time. Misjudgments and bad decisions by highly educated bankers and money managers, for example, brought us the financial crisis of 2008. Smart people do foolish things because intelligence is not the same as the capacity for rational thinking. The Rationality Quotient explains that these two traits, often (and incorrectly) thought of as one, refer to different cognitive functions. The standard IQ test, the authors argue, doesn't measure any of the broad components of rationality—adaptive responding, good judgment, and good decision making. The authors show that rational thinking, like intelligence, is a measurable cognitive competence. Drawing on theoretical work and empirical research from the last two decades, they present the first prototype for an assessment of rational thinking analogous to the IQ test: the CART (Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking). The authors describe the theoretical underpinnings of the CART, distinguishing the algorithmic mind from the reflective mind. They discuss the logic of the tasks used to measure cognitive biases, and they develop a unique typology of thinking errors. The Rationality Quotient explains the components of rational thought assessed by the CART, including probabilistic and scientific reasoning; the avoidance of “miserly” information processing; and the knowledge structures needed for rational thinking. Finally, the authors discuss studies of the CART and the social and practical implications of such a test. An appendix offers sample items from the test.

The Paradox of Choice

Author: Barry Schwartz

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 0061748994

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Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.