The Psychology of Decision-Making: How Choice Context, Content and Task Influence People’s Behaviour

Dear Colleagues,

Prominent normative (von Neumann & Morganstern, 1947) and descriptive (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979; Tversky & Kahneman, 1992) theories of decision-making assume that people have stable and consistent preferences, informed by psychological computational processing. In contrast, empirical evidence has demonstrated that peoples’ preferences are sensitive to features of the environment – context, content and behavioural task (e.g., Hertwig et al., 2004; Kusev et al., 2009; Kusev & van Schaik, 2011; Martin, Kusev, & van Schaik, 2021; Martin, Kusev, Teal, et al., 2021; Pedroni et al., 2017; Teal et al., 2021) and ‘constructed on the fly’ (Kusev et al., 2020; Slovic, 1995), often using non-computational psychological mechanisms (e.g., Brandstätter et al., 2006; Gigerenzer et al. 1999; Stewart et al., 2006). However, little is known about the relationship between features of the environment and the specific psychological mechanisms (e.g., sampling, computational processing, adaptive heuristics) which they trigger, and which are subsequently used by people to construct their preferences ‘on the fly’. 

Accordingly, this special issue focuses on advancing the exploration of how (and when) features of the decision-making environment (context, content and task) trigger the psychological mechanisms which influence peoples’ decision-making behaviour. For instance, contributors may wish to explore the psychology of decision-making, behavioural science and/or behavioural economics in one of the following domains (please note, this list provides examples – it is non-exhaustive): 

• Risky Behaviour
• Moral Behaviour
• Consumer Behaviour
• Health and Wellbeing
• Public Policy (e.g., boosting vs nudging)
• Prosocial Behaviour
• Behaviour and Social Cognition
• Cognition and Behaviour
• Behaviour of Autonomous Systems/Technology
• Behavioural Finance
• Behaviour in the Workplace
• Managerial Decision Making 

Given the broad scope of this special issue and the interdisciplinary nature of decision-making research, we expect that it will attract contributions (empirical and review manuscripts) from researchers in fields such as: behavioural science, behavioural economics, behavioural finance, psychology, economics, computer science, sociology, anthropology, political science, philosophy. 

References 

Brandstätter, E., Gigerenzer, G., & Hertwig, R. (2006). The priority heuristic: Making choices without trade-offs. Psychological Review, 113(2), 409-432. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.113.2.409.

Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P. M., & ABC Research Group (1999). Simple heuristics that make us smart. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hertwig, R., Barron, G., Weber, E. U., & Erev, I. (2004). Decisions from experience and the effect of rare events in risky choice. Psychological Science, 15(8), 534-539.

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263–291.

Kusev, P., & van Schaik, P. (2011). Preferences under risk: Content-dependent behaviour and psychological processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 269.

Kusev, P., van Schaik, P., Ayton, P., Dent, J., & Chater, N. (2009). Exaggerated risk: Prospect theory and probability weighting in risky choice. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 35(6), 1487-1505.

Kusev, P., Van Schaik, P., Martin, R., Hall, L., & Johansson, P. (2020). Preference reversals during risk elicitation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(3), 585-589. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000655.

Martin, R., Kusev, P., & van Schaik, P. (2021). Autonomous vehicles: How perspective-taking accessibility alters moral judgments and consumer purchasing behavior. Cognition, 212, 104666. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104666

Martin, R., Kusev, P., Teal, J., Baranova, V., & Rigal, B. (2021). Moral Decision Making: From Bentham to Veil of Ignorance via Perspective Taking Accessibility. Behavioral Sciences, 11(5), 66.

Pedroni, A., Frey, R., Bruhin, A., Dutilh, G., Hertwig, R., & Rieskamp, J. (2017). The risk elicitation puzzle. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(11), 803-809. doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0219-x.

Slovic, P. (1995). The construction of preference. American psychologist, 50(5), 364.

Stewart, N., Chater, N., & Brown, G. D. A. (2006). Decision by sampling. Cognitive Psychology, 53(1), 1-26. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2005.10.003

Teal, J., Kusev, P., Heilman, R., Martin, R., Passanisi, A., & Pace, U. (2021). Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(16), 8607.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1992). Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative representation of uncertainty. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 5(4), 297-323.

von Neumann, J. & Morgenstern, O. (1947). Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Behavioral Sciences.

Prof. Dr. Petko Kusev
Dr. Rose Martin
Dr. ‪Joseph Teal‬
Guest Editors

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• psychology of decision-making
• behavioural science
• behavioural economics
• decision environment
• cognition