Decision Theory and Decision Behaviour: Normative and Descriptive Approaches

Rapoport, Anatol

ISBN 10: 0792302974 / ISBN 13: 9780792302971

Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989

About this Item

430 pages. ". It is shown that the concept of rationality, which supposedly serves as a basis for normative decision theory, becomes ambivalent as soon as the decision situation involves actors whose interests partly diverge and partly converge. Addressed to all who seek to integrate respect for intellectual rigour and rational analysis with concern for ethical problems of decision making that arise in the juxtaposition of competition and cooperation." - from back board. Binding tight and square. Prior owner's name atop front free endpaper. Few markings to contents. Blue highlighting to approximately 10 pages. Sound copy in glossy olive and white boards.; 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall; DECISION MAKING GAME THEORY EDUCATION PROBLEM SOLVING MATHEMATICS Decision Theory and Decision Behaviour: Normative and Descriptive Approaches concept of rationality, which supposedly serves as a basis for normative decision theory, becomes ambivalent as.

Seller Inventory # 211a7556

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Decision Theory and Decision Behaviour: Normative and Descriptive Approaches
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers
• Publication Date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0792302974
• ISBN 13: 9780792302971
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Text

About this title

Synopsis

This book presents the content of a year's course in decision processes for third and fourth year students given at the University of Toronto. A principal theme of the book is the relationship between normative and descriptive decision theory. The distinction between the two approaches is not clear to everyone, yet it is of great importance. Normative decision theory addresses itself to the question of how people ought to make decisions in various types of situations, if they wish to be regarded (or to regard themselves) as 'rational'. Descriptive decision theory purports to describe how people actually make decisions in a variety of situations. Normative decision theory is much more formalized than descriptive theory. Especially in its advanced branches, normative theory makes use of mathematicallanguage, mode of discourse, and concepts. For this reason, the definitions of terms encountered in normative decision theory are precise, and its deductions are rigorous. Like the terms and assertions of other branches of mathematics, those of mathematically formalized decision theory need not refer to anything in the 'real', i. e. the observable, world. The terms and assertions can be interpreted in the context of models of real li fe situations, but the verisimilitude of the models is not important. They are meant to capture only the essentials of adecision situation, which in reallife may be obscured by complex details and ambiguities. It is these details and ambiguities, however, that may be crucial in determining the outcomes of the decisions.

Synopsis

Presents the content of a year's course in decision processes for third and fourth year students. Roughly equal emphasis is placed on normative and descriptive approaches, this two-track approach incorporating theory and concerns usually relegated to the separate camps of economics or political science (for normative decision theory) and psychology