Decision Making Definition
Decision making refers to the act of evaluating (i.e., forming opinions of) several alternatives and choosing the one most likely to achieve one or more goals. Common examples include deciding for whom to vote, what to eat or buy, and which college to attend. Decision making plays a key role in many professions, such as public policy, medicine, and management. The related concept of judgment refers to the use of information, often from a variety of sources, to form an evaluation or expectation. One might imagine that people’s judgment determines their choices, though it is not always the case. Read more about Decision Making.
Decision Making Research Topics:
Decision Making Research in Applied Fields
Most behavioral decision researchers now reside in business schools rather than in psychology departments. This shift reflects, in part, the growing influence of decision research on applied fields, such as marketing, organizational behavior, and behavioral economics. For example, a great deal of behavioral decision research over the past 30 years or so has examined topics related to consumer decision making, bargaining, fairness, and behavioral game theory. Furthermore, there is a growing recognition in the economics field, which dominated early views of decision making, that violations of rationality are often systematic, predictable, and are not corrected by learning or market forces. Accordingly, the still evolving subfield of behavioral economics has increasingly incorporated descriptive aspects of decision making, derived from studies conducted by behavioral decision researchers, into economic models, addressing issues such as choice, valuation of goods, and discrimination.
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