Recent research has highlighted the notion that people can make judgments and choices by means of two systems that are labeled here tacit (or intuitive) and deliberate (or analytic). Whereas most decisions typically involve both systems, this chapter examines the conditions under which each...

When can a single variable be more accurate in binary choice than multiple sources of information? We derive analytically the probability that a single variable (SV) will correctly predict one of two choices when both criterion and predictor are continuous variables. We further provide analogous...

Whereas people are typically thought to be better off with more choices, studies show that they often prefer to choose from small as opposed to large sets of alternatives. We propose that satisfaction from choice is an inverted U-shaped function of the number of alternatives. This proposition is...

Does ethical differentiation of products affect market behavior? We examined this issue in triopolistic experimental markets where producers set prices. One producer’s costs were higher than the others. In two treatments, the additional costs were attributed to compliance with ethical...

An important problem in descriptive and prescriptive research in decision making is to identify “regions of rationality,” i.e., the areas for which heuristics are and are not effective. To map the contours of such regions, we derive probabilities that heuristics identify the best of m...

Confidence in decision making is an important dimension of managerial behavior. However, what is the relation between confidence, on the one hand, and the fact of receiving or expecting to receive feedback on decisions taken, on the other hand? To explore this and related issues in the context...

Excess entry refers to the high failure rate of new entrepreneurial ventures. Economic explanations suggest 'hit and run' entrants and risk-seeking behavior. A psychological explanation is that people (entrepreneurs) are overconfident in their abilities (Camerer & Lovallo, 1999). Characterizing...

Several studies have reported high performance of simple decision heuristics multi-attribute decision making. In this paper, we focus on situations where attributes are binary and analyze the performance of Deterministic-Elimination-By-Aspects (DEBA) and similar decision heuristics. We consider...

The effectiveness of decision rules depends on characteristics of both rules and environments. A theoretical analysis of environments specifies the relative predictive accuracies of the lexicographic rule 'take-the-best' (TTB) and other simple strategies for binary choice. We identify three...

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