Decision making and equilibria

In economics and in the social sciences, the study of decision making of the single individual is an important preliminary step to provide a sound foundation for the analysis of equilibria in economic and social systems. Neuroeconomic analysis of the process has been a recent fruitful development in this direction. In the more recent past a new direction of research has emerged, studying the interplay of the decision making of the single individual with the economic and social environment that surrounds him. We review some of the results in this field, both theoretical and experimental, and suggest that a closer development of these two methods of research will be necessary in the future.     

Decision making and neuropsychiatry

Abnormal decision making is a central feature of neuropsychiatric disorders. Recent investigations of the neural substrates underlying decision making have involved qualitative assessment of the cognition of decision making in clinical lesion studies (in patients with frontal lobe dementia) and neuropsychiatric disorders such as mania, substance abuse and personality disorders. A neural network involving the orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum and modulatory ascending neurotransmitter systems has been identified as having a fundamental role in decision making and in the neural basis of neuropsychiatric diseases. This network accounts for the dissociations among decision-making deficits in different clinical populations. Ultimately, a more refined and sophisticated characterization of such deficits might guide the early diagnosis and cognitive and therapeutic rehabilitation of these patients.     

Decision making styles and progress in occupational decision making

This study provides a reexamination of the role of different decisional strategies in facilitating progress in occupational decision making. Although the assumptions that a rational decision making style is the preferred mode of vocational functioning has been endorsed in a variety of career theories and interventions, there has been conflicting evidence about the validity of this assumption. To examine the role of different decisional approaches in the progress of making an occupational decision, the rational, intuitive, and dependent decision making style scores of 71 undergraduate students were used to predict progress in occupational decision making. The results of the regression analyses failed to provide support for the assumption that a rational style is the most effective in accomplishing this careerrelated task, but indicated strong support for the conclusion that the use of dependent decisional strategies is damaging, particularly in early stages of the decisional process.     

Career decision making: The limits of rationality and the abundance of non-conscious processes

The terms of work have changed, with multiple transitions now characterizing the arc of a typical career. This article examines an ongoing shift in the area of vocational decision making, as it moves from a place where “it’s all about the match” to one closer to “it’s all about adapting to change”. We review literatures on judgment and decision making, 2-system models of decisional thought, the neuroanatomy of decision making, and the role of non-conscious processes in decision making. Acknowledging the limits of rationality, and the abundance of non-conscious processes in decision making, obliges us to act in ways that mitigate the inherent difficulties to which those processes make us vulnerable. We conclude that both rational and intuitive processes seem dialectically intertwined in effective decision making, and we offer a trilateral model of career decision making that includes rational and intuitive mechanisms, both of which are funded and kept in check by occupational engagement.     

Career decision making: The limits of rationality and the abundance of non-conscious processes

The terms of work have changed, with multiple transitions now characterizing the arc of a typical career. This article examines an ongoing shift in the area of vocational decision making, as it moves from a place where “it’s all about the match” to one closer to “it’s all about adapting to change”. We review literatures on judgment and decision making, 2-system models of decisional thought, the neuroanatomy of decision making, and the role of non-conscious processes in decision making. Acknowledging the limits of rationality, and the abundance of non-conscious processes in decision making, obliges us to act in ways that mitigate the inherent difficulties to which those processes make us vulnerable. We conclude that both rational and intuitive processes seem dialectically intertwined in effective decision making, and we offer a trilateral model of career decision making that includes rational and intuitive mechanisms, both of which are funded and kept in check by occupational engagement.     

Decision making and testosterone: When the ends justify the means

Behavioral endocrinology research suggests that testosterone may play a role in moral decision making. Studies involving human and nonhuman animals indicate that high basal testosterone is associated with decreased aversion to risk and an increased threshold for conflict, fear, stress, and threat. We tested the role of testosterone in moral decision making. We predicted and found that individuals high in testosterone are more likely to make utilitarian decisions—specifically when doing so involves acts of aggression and social cost.     

Repeated diazepam administration reversed working memory impairments and glucocorticoid alterations in the prefrontal cortex after short but not long alcohol-withdrawal periods

The study was designed to assess whether repeated administration of diazepam (Valium®, Roche)—a benzodiazepine exerting an agonist action on GABA_A receptors—may alleviate both the short (1 week, 1W) and long-term (6 weeks, 6W) deleterious effects of alcohol withdrawal occurring after chronic alcohol consumption (6 months; 12% v/v) in C57/BL6 male mice. More pointedly, we first evidenced that 1W and 6W alcohol-withdrawn mice exhibited working memory deficits in a sequential alternation task, associated with sustained exaggerated corticosterone rise and decreased pCREB levels in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). In a subsequent experiment, diazepam was administered i.p. for 9 consecutive days (1 injection/day) during the alcohol withdrawal period at decreasing doses ranging from 1.0 mg/kg to 0.25 mg/kg. Diazepam was not detected in the blood of withdrawn mice at the time of memory testing, occurring 24 hours after the last diazepam injection. Repeated diazepam administration significantly improved alternation rates and normalized levels of glucocorticoids and pCREB activity in the PFC in 1W but not in 6W withdrawn mice. Thus, repeated diazepam administration during the alcohol-withdrawal period only transitorily canceled out the working memory impairments and glucocorticoid alterations in the PFC of alcohol-withdrawn animals.     

Decision ecology: Foraging and the ecology of animal decision making

In this article, I review the approach taken by behavioral ecologists to the study of animal foraging behavior and explore connections with general analyses of decision making. I use the example of patch exploitation decisions in this article in order to develop several key points about the properties of naturally occurring foraging decisions. First, I argue that experimental preparations based on binary, mutually exclusive choice are not good models of foraging decisions. Instead, foraging choices have a sequential foreground-background structure, in which one option is in the background of all other options. Second, behavioral ecologists view foraging as a hierarchy of decisions that range from habitat selection to food choice. Finally, data suggest that foraging animals are sensitive to several important trade-offs. These trade-offs include the effects of competitors and group mates, as well as the problem of predator avoidance.     

Decision making and free will: a neuroscience perspective

A thorough analysis of the question of whether we possess "free will" requires that we take into account the process of exercising that will: that is, the neural mechanisms of decision making. Much of what we know about these mechanisms indicates that decision making is greatly influenced by implicit processes that may not even reach consciousness. Moreover, there exist conditions, for example certain types of brain injury or drug addiction, in which an individual can be said to have a disorder of the will. Examples such as these demonstrate that the idea of freedom of will on which our legal system is based is not supported by the neuroscience of decision making. Using the criminal law as an example, we discuss how new discoveries in neuroscience can serve as a tool for reprioritizing our society's legal intuitions in a way that leads us to a more effective and humane system.     

心理距离视角下的行为决策

决策是指决策者对将产生不同结果的多个备择方案的评估与选择。无论决策结果涉及的是金钱、健康、环境或是其他事物,它们都同时具有多重属性,如发生的概率,发生的时间,发生的地点,发生在谁身上等,这些属性会和结果量一起影响人们对结果效用的评价和对备择方案的选择。以往有关风险决策、跨期决策和社会决策的理论分别探究结果的概率属性、时间属性和人际属性如何与结果量一起共同决定人们的效用评估与选择,并提出了各自不同的决策模型。然而,心理距离理论则认为,决策结果的概率、时间、空间、人际等属性本质上都可被表征为结果在决策者心中的心理距离。这意味着风险、跨期和社会决策模型有可能经由心理距离而得以统一。近几年来,众多研究围绕这一思想开展了一系列实验研究,分析了各种心理距离的同质性,探索了基于心理距离的心理折扣现象及其规律,探讨了时间、概率、人际、空间距离对个体决策的影响。在此基础上,未来研究还应更加重视对多特征决策的研究,探索心理距离之间的替换率和通币问题,探究心理距离的本质及其整合方式,以期形成统一的决策理论模型。     

Mindsets,rationality and emotion in Multi‐criteria Decision Analysis

This paper discusses the paradigm of multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA), and relates it to other disciplines. It concludes that MCDA needs a larger, not smaller, emphasis on values and subjectivity to increase rationality in decision‐making. The paper bases the argument on a conciliation of ethics, philosophy, neuro‐psychology and management paradigms. It observes that the MCDA ‘mindset’ relates to consequentialism, as opposed to virtue ethics and rule based ethics. Virtues and rules play an important role in practical decision‐making, however. Findings in neuro‐psychology show that reliable decision‐making requires emotions. Elicitation of emotions is therefore required in MCDA value trade‐off processes. This leads to a concept of emotional rationality, which defines rationality as a four‐dimensional concept that includes well‐founded values and breaks radically with common notions of rationality. Virtues do not easily lend themselves to value trade‐off, but questions of virtue usually creates strong social emotions, as opposed to the feebler global emotions that may arise in connection conventional trade‐off of end values. The conclusion is that MCDA should not be shy of subjectivity and emotion, but instead put more emphasis on it to increase rationality. A part of this challenge is how to deal with questions of virtue in decision‐making. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the brightness of short and long flashes

The equation proposed by S. S. Stevens to describe the relations among brightness, intensity, and duration involves assumptions that are here made explicit. The equation is shown to apply to earlier studies designed to measure critical duration.     

Decision making under conflict: Decision time as a measure of conflict strength

Conflict and choice are closely related in that choice produces conflict and conflict is resolved by making a choice. Although conflict was invoked in psychological approaches to decision making early on (Lewin, 1931/1964), no generally accepted measure of conflict strength has been established (Tversky & Shafir, 1992). The present study introduces a model (multiattribute decision field theory) that predicts a decision time pattern depending on the conflict situation. In a risky decision-making experiment with multiattribute choice alternatives, decision time is investigated as a possible measure of conflict strength. It is shown that the model can be fitted to a complex choice pattern.