A+Brief+History+of+the+Branch+of+Decision+Making

=// A Brief History... //=

**"Decision-making" is a term that until recently had never been used. Although this may appear to discredit its importance, it is a term that is highly relevant to everyon****e's daily lives. How would you define decision-making? Roughly defined in Cognitive Psychology, decision making is "generating, evaluating, and selecting among a set of relevant choices" (451).**

**There are multiple theories that attempt to ex****plain why peop****le make the decisions that they make. A couple of these are the Expected Value Theory and the Expected Utility Theory. These theories are economically derived and believe that human minds will always make optimal decisions; more specifically, by putting a theoretical pric****e on all options and choosing the highest-value option to them personally. However in Cognitive Psychology, Herbert Simon portrays a slightly different view from the economical theories through the idea of "bounded rationality" (452). Bounded rationality, put simply is: instead of making perfect decisio****ns all the time, people make good decisions most of the time (452).**

**All of these t****heories are** **the** **logical representation of this complex brain function, with some faults. The theories discussed are based on** **response but humans are capable of making any decision they want, regardless of it****s value to them personally. Humans use heuristics and personal strategies to obtain their goals in their individual lives.** **In all actuality, the human decision process is far from optimal. In many tests and studies, it has been proven that context effects as well as** **preference reversals can completely manipulate a persons judgment, and in effect decisions.**


 * There are multiple explanations that attempt to interpret different parts of the process of making a decision. One example is the Cer****tainty E****ffect. This is usually implemented subconsciously and follows the belief that****people tend to overweight c****ertain sure-ga****ins against losses (454). Another example is the framing effect, in which information is framed in a way that manipulates a persons judgement simply through the placement of words and images or other visuals.**

**// References  //** Medin, D.L., Ross, B.H., Markman, A.B. (2005). //Cognitive Psychology// (4th ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

**Some Notable Contributors...**