Judgment and Choice: The Psychology of Decision

This volume examines the intuitive basis that underlies human decision-making. Formal decision-making methods are discussed, although the emphasis is on the unstructured, natural way people make judgements and exercise choice. The major goal of the book is to help people make better decisions, and the author’s psychological point of view differs from the standard texts on the subject, which stress decision-making methodology, statistical decision theory and related subjects. The author observes how people are generally unaware of how they make decisions and, often, why they prefer one alternative to others. A notable theme of this book is that intuition can be both studied and educated. Chapters cover the nature of human judgement, randomness and the probabilistic environment, the role of memory in judgement, creativity, imagination, choice, and more. Appendices.