Psychology of Critical Decision-Making

Richard M. Adler
Additional contact information
Richard M. Adler: DecisionPath

Chapter Chapter 4 in Bending the Law of Unintended Consequences, 2020, pp 41-62 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Merton’s analysis of the Law of Unintended Consequences (LUC) criticizes rational choice theory, a cornerstone of modern economics. Section 4.1 takes a brief excursion into rational choice theory and will illuminate what Merton (and his successors) were reacting to and why. Following that, we will review the prevailing cognitive explanation for psychological triggers of LUC, in four parts. Section 4.2 provides a brief history of the research collaboration by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, who pioneered the study of distortions in judgments and choices from a cognitive perspective. Section 4.3 surveys the current “catalog” of cognitive factors that provoke LUC. Section 4.4 provides an overview of parallel research on judgment errors that arise when people make predictive judgments about the dynamics of changing situations. These cognitive factors are underappreciated triggers of LUC. Section 4.5 sketches a dynamic model that explains how these cognitive factors act to distort critical decision-making. Section 4.6 closes by identifying the cognitive biases that most strongly influence the phases of the critical decision-making process presented in Chap. 2.

Keywords: Rational actor theory; Tversky; Kahneman; Cognitive biases; Heuristic intuitions; Dynamic biases; System 1; System 2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-32714-9_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030327149

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-32714-9_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().