Behavioral Decision Making

Decision-making is a cognitive process stemming from the analysis of available courses of action related to a given problem. Rationally, potential courses of action are derived from deliberate analysis of available data related to a problem and its potential outcomes. Decisions are generally characterized as normative, descriptive or naturalistic. Normative decisions are based on evidence, logic and analysis; descriptive decisions are based on intuition and experience. Naturalistic decisions are formed as a hybrid of normative and descriptive processes.

For decision-makers the revolution in information technology and the amount and scope of the data they provide has become overwhelming, leading to cognitive overload, confusion and an inability to function effectively. Decision Support Systems (DSS) facilitate data analysis and selection of a viable course of action rapidly and effectively. However, like the human decision- makers they serve, DSS capabilities may also suffer from cognitive overload, inaccuracy, and complexity, especially in time-sensitive environments.

This study explores DSS employment for time-sensitive decision processes using Digitally Aided Close Air Support (DACAS) as a model. The study explores decision theory, models, DSS development and time-sensitive environments. Using DACAS as a model the paper reveals the obstacles and opportunities associated with the employment of DSS for time- sensitive processes. Finally, the study makes recommendations for improved employment of DSS in time-sensitive environments.

Some of Law and Economics’ basic claims have come to be criticized as a result of empirical findings that question their viability. Particularly, the premise that agents consistently act rationally and with their self-interest in mind seems problematic. What the consequences of the criticism mean for Law and Economics’ tenability depends largely on the questions whether (1) some elements are unassailable to the alternative’s objections and (2) the alternative is a systematic whole. It is argued that Law and Economics may be salvaged, if it is minimized and its ambitions are tempered. This means focusing on the stable, a priori, elements inherent to it.

There are very few connections between physics and cognitive psychology. But in this paper, we assume that recent models inspired by concepts issued from physics and problemsolving cognitive processes like the Model Human Processor with Real Time Constraints (MHP/RT) model (Kitajima and Toyota, 2012) [1] allow to better describe and predict human behaviors especially in complex and dynamical environments where interactions between several bands and space-time constraints exist. After presenting the importance of the concept of resonance in physics and in cognitive psychology, the deterministic chaos in human action and behavior will be described, by focusing on an innovative model directly inspired by models issued from physics and problem-solving cognitive processes, Model Human Processor With Real Time Constraints (MHP/RT). If nowadays, the distance between physics and psychology is very prominent, the main goal of this paper is to defend the necessity to (re)create strong relatio...

Background: End-of-life (EOL) care for Latinos with chronic illness is a critically important problem. Latinos with chronic illness suffer worse health outcomes and poorer quality of care due to various issues occurring in care delivery systems. Latinos are less likely than non-Hispanic whites to prepare an advance directive (AD) for health-care decision-making that impacts treatment decisions for when EOL is near. Advance care planning (ACP) interventions tailored specifically for Latinos have rarely been implemented. Objective: The primary aim examines whether a motivational interviewing (MI) intervention increased rates of AD documentation among older Latinos. The secondary aim was to examine whether MI improved communication with providers and family members. Methods: We pilot tested a randomized controlled trial with older Latinos >50 years with one or more chronic illnesses, including cancer. Participants were randomly assigned to usual care (UC) receiving ACP education alone versus treatment (TX), which received ACP education, plus MI counseling including interactive decisional support, emotional support, and barrier navigation. Results: Results of logistic regression indicate TX group participants were significantly more likely to document an AD than UC, however were less ready to talk with health-care providers or family members. Those reporting navigational barriers for talking about dying is difficult showed a significant negative relationship for AD completion even with significant intervention effects. Conclusion: When using MI to motivate individuals toward ACP EOL conversations other factors are important to consider. Further research is needed, especially among Latinos to understand best practices for ACP education and counseling for EOL care.

Consumers' food choices are often driven by reasons of which consumers are not fully aware. Decision-making
about food is influenced by a complex set of emotions, feelings, attitudes, and values that are impossible to assess
simply by asking consumers their opinions. Indeed, traditional techniques, such as self-reports or interviews,
mainly allow the measurement of conscious and rational reactions to a product or advertising. Recently, there
has been a rapidly growing interest in the multidisciplinary field of “neuromarketing,” which takes advantage of
neuroscientific techniques to study consumer behavior.
This discipline applies neuroscientific methods and tools that allow the measurement of consumers' emotional
and spontaneous reactions in a more objective and observable way. The aim of this paper is (a) to describe
neuromarketing's underlying assumptions, techniques, and the advantages of this perspective, examining the
scientific literature on the use of neuromarketing in food studies; and (b) to suggest best practices to apply this
novel approach in the food marketing domain, with a specific focus on non-invasive methods.
Finally, although the perception of nutritional elements has already been explored, the health content of
labels, the presence of additives, and the evaluation of the information conveyed by food packaging remain other
possible elements of interest in future food neuromarketing research.

The term “behavioral” has become a hot topic in recent years in various disciplines; however, there is yet limited understanding of what theories can be considered behavioral theories and what fields of research they can be applied to. Through a cross-disciplinary literature review, this article identifies sixty-two behavioral theories from 963 search results, mapping them in a diagram of four groups (factors, strategies, learning and conditioning, and modeling), and points to five discussion points: understanding of terms, classification, guidance on the use of appropriate theories, inclusion in data-driven research and agent-based modeling, and dialogue between theory-driven and data-driven approaches.

The authors investigated whether need for cognitive closure (NFCC) affected one’s style of information search (attribute-based search vs. alternative-based search) in consumer choice. There has been grow- ing interest in NFCC in marketing and its relationship to consumer information processing. However, no study to date has examined the different information search strategies that consumers employ when they (1) possess different levels of NFCC or (2) are exposed to situa- tions that evoke more or less NFCC. Across two studies where Study 1 measured NFCC while Study 2 manipulated NFCC, the authors com- monly found that higher NFCC compared to lower NFCC resulted in (1) a greater preference for the attribute-based search over the alternative-based search and (2) a consideration of a smaller amount of information to make a final choice. Implications for consumer information processing and sales strategies are discussed along with future research directions.

Advancement in information and technology has made a major impact on medical science where the researchers come up with new ideas for improving the classification rate of various diseases. Breast cancer is one such disease killing large number of people around the world. Diagnosing the disease at its earliest instance makes a huge impact on its treatment. The authors propose a Binary Bat Algorithm (BBA) based Feedforward Neural Network (FNN) hybrid model, where the advantages of BBA and efficiency of FNN is exploited for the classification of three benchmark breast cancer datasets into malignant and benign cases. Here BBA is used to generate a V-shaped hyperbolic tangent function for training the network and a fitness function is used for error minimization. FNNBBA based classification produces 92.61% accuracy for training data and 89.95% for testing data.

The current experiment explored the effect of activating a counterfactual mind-set on the discussion of unique information and group judgment accuracy. Evidence suggests that a counterfactual mind-set is characterized by a focused, analytic mental state and, when activated at the group level, improves group judgment accuracy in the murder mystery paradigm (a hidden profile task). We hypothesized that the beneficial effect of the counterfactual mind-set would only help group problem-solving tasks if the mind-set had been activated at the group level, allowing the analytical mind-set to play out in an atmosphere of synergistic coordination. In contrast, if this highly focused mental state is activated at the individual level, it could impair group judgment quality because inwardly focused analytical individuals may fail to coordinate their behavior with other group members. Consistent with our hypothesis, activating a counterfactual mind-set at the individual level had a debilitating effect on the group judgment task, whereas activating a counterfactual mind-set at the group level had a facilitative effect, increasing information sharing, synergistic coordination and judgment accuracy. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This book explores how digital technology is altering the relationships between people and how the very nature of interface itself needs to be reconsidered to reflect this – how
we can make sense of each other, handle ambiguities, negotiate differences, empathise and collectively make skilled judgments in our modern society. The author presents new directions for research at the relational-transactional intersection of contrasting disciplines of arts, science and technology,and in so doing, presents philosophical and artistic questions for future research on human connectivity in our digital age.

▶ Introduces the relational interface, which questions the historical idea of the interface as a conduit of the transactional and addresses an aesthetic and ethical balance
▶ Formulates tacit engagement as an emerging concept for the study of human relations
▶ Proposes a fundamental framework of mediation for expertise and decision making in complex human systems
▶ Critiques the concept of data and what makes for the success of knowledge transfer

This paper exhibits a short-run correspondence method appropriate for swarm versatile robots application. Infrared is utilized for transmitting and accepting information and obstruction location. The infrared correspondence code based swarm signaling is utilized for an independent versatile robot communication system in this research. A code based signaling system is developed for transmitting information between different entities of robot. The reflected infrared sign is additionally utilized for separation estimation for obstruction evasion. Investigation of robot demonstrates the possibility of utilizing infrared signs to get a solid nearby correspondence between swarm portable robots. This paper exhibits a basic decentralized control for swarm of self-collecting robots. Every robot in the code based swarm signaling is completely self-governing and controlled utilizing a conduct based methodology with just infrared-based nearby detecting and correspondences. The viability of the methodology has been checked with simulation, for a set of swarm robots.

Managers are often required to integrate their own forecasts with statistical forecasts. The studies reported in this paper examine the efficacy of allowing people to adjust their own forecasts in the light of statistical forecasts that are provided to them. Three experimental studies varied the reliability of the statistical forecasts and examined the performance of people over time. Issues of the form of the feedback and the use of decision support were also examined. The results unequivocally suggest that the effectiveness of judgemental adjustment depended on the statistical model's reliability and seasonally of time series. However, people had considerable difficulty placing less weight on their own forecasts (compared to the statistical forecasts) and this behaviour became more pronounced over time. Even provision of decision support did not improve performance at the task.

This Master's studies Paper analyzes what drove the actors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to take the decisions they took, by utilizing the theories of the most influential author of decision making, James March, with the focus on the Logic of Appropriateness. By using the relevant information from the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG-7) report from 1992, and other relevant sources, the actors of the event are separated in two groups and their decisions are analyzed using the aforementioned theoretical framework.

การศึกษาวิจัยนี้เป็นการวิจัยเชิงปริมาณ มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อศึกษา 1. ลักษณะทางประชากรที่ต่างกันจะมีการเปิดรับข้อมูลจากผู้นำความคิดด้านสุขภาพจิตในเครือข่ายสังคมออนไลน์แตกต่างกัน 2. ลักษณะทางประชากรที่ต่างกันจะมีการรับรู้บริการสุขภาพจิตจากผู้นำความคิดด้านสุขภาพจิตในเครือข่ายสังคมออนไลน์แตกต่างกัน 3. ลักษณะทางประชากรที่ต่างกันจะมีทัศนคติต่อผู้นำความคิดด้านสุขภาพจิตในเครือข่ายสังคมออนไลน์แตกต่างกัน 4. ลักษณะทางประชากรที่ต่างกันจะมีการตัดสินใจใช้บริการสุขภาพจิตแตกต่างกัน และ 5. ศึกษาอิทธิพลของการเปิดรับ การรับรู้ ทัศนคติ และการตัดสินใจใช้บริการสุขภาพจิต โดยใช้วิธีวิจัยเชิงสำรวจจากกลุ่มตัวอย่างที่เป็นผู้ติดตามผู้นำความคิดด้านสุขภาพจิตในเครือข่ายสังคมออนไลน์ ในบริเวณขอบเขตที่ศึกษา จำนวน 400 คน
ผลการวิจัยพบว่า 1. เพศหญิงมีการเปิดรับ การรับรู้ ทัศนคติ และแนะนำบริการสุขภาพจิต มากกว่าเพศชาย 2. ผู้ที่อายุน้อยแนะนำบริการสุขภาพจิตให้ผู้อื่นทราบ มากกว่าผู้ที่อายุมากกว่า 3. ผู้มีการศึกษาต่ำกว่าระดับปริญญาตรีเปิดรับข้อมูลข่าวสารจากผู้นำความคิดด้านสุขภาพจิตในเครือข่ายสังคมออนไลน์มากกว่าผู้มีการศึกษาสูงกว่าปริญญาตรี 4. คนที่มีสถานภาพหม้าย/หย่ามีพฤติกรรมการเปิดรับข้อมูลจากผู้นำความคิดมากกว่าคนที่มีสถานภาพสมรส 5. คนที่มีรายได้น้อยมีทัศนคติต่อการบริการด้านสุขภาพจิตในเชิงบวกมากกว่าคนที่มีรายได้สูงกว่า 6. การรับรู้ข้อมูลข่าวสารสุขภาพจิตจากผู้นำความคิดในเครือข่ายสังคมออนไลน์มีอิทธิพลต่อการตัดสินใจเข้าใช้บริการด้านสุขภาพจิต

The current work examined police officers decisions to shoot Black and White criminal suspects in a computer simulation. Responses to the simulation revealed that upon initial exposure to the program, the officers were more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed Black compared with unarmed White suspects. However, after extensive training with the program, in which the race of the suspect was unrelated to the presence of a weapon, the officers were able to eliminate this bias. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the elimination of racial biases and the training of police officers.

Zur Überprüfung der Zielerreichung sowie zur Ressourcensteuerung wurden u. a. die niedersächsischen Kommunen zur Einführung eines Controllings durch den Landesgesetzgeber verpflichtet, welches insbesondere auch als Instrument für die Führungsebene und für die Entscheidungsträger dient.  Das Behavioral Controlling, als ein Teilgebiet des Controllings, befasst sich dabei mit den Zusammenhängen systematisch wiederkehrend erkennbarer, menschlicher Verhaltenszüge im Arbeitsleben sowie der Analyse und Nutzung selbiger zu Unternehmenszwecken.  Folgt man der Prämisse, dass Mitarbeiter den wesentlichen Produktionsfaktor darstellen und Kommunen ihrer gesetzlichen Verpflichtung nachkommen, verwundert es sehr, dass außer der Herleitung finanzdatenbasierter Kennzahlen keinerlei ökonomische Modellierung oder publizierte empirische Studien für den kommunalen Bereich existieren und verhaltensorientiertes Controlling bisher scheinbar nicht berücksichtigt wird. Da gerade die Mitarbeiter in einer öffentlichen Institution eine wichtige Res-source darstellen, ist es von besonderer Bedeutung, ihr Verhalten gemäß der Institutionsziele zu steuern. Strategisches Controlling kann hierzu einen Beitrag leisten und somit dem Gemeinwohl dienen.
In diesem Beitrag wird anhand einer empirischen Studie untersucht, ob im Rahmen des Behavioral Controllings soziale Präferenzen zur Verhaltenssteuerung von Mitarbeitern in einer kommunalen Institution dienen können. Eine soziale Präferenz ist eine den Nutzen eines anderen Entscheiders bei der eigenen Entscheidung berücksichtigende Vorgehensweise in konkreten Entscheidungssituationen; sie verdeutlicht, dass Menschen ökonomische Prozesse nicht nur aus der eigenen Nutzenperspektive betrachten, sondern auch den Vorteil anderer Menschen einbeziehen. 
Die Untersuchung zeigt, dass die große Mehrheit der Befragten soziale Präferenzen bereits zur Steuerung des Verhaltens von Mitarbeitern einsetzt. Ein hoher Anteil der Befragten wünscht sich sogar eine formelle Regelung hierfür.

In two experiments, we used an automatic car simulator to examine the steering control, speed regulation and response to hazards of young adults with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and limited driving experience. In Experiment 1 participants either used the accelerator pedal to regulate their speed, or used the brake pedal when they needed to slow down from a pre-set speed. In Experiment 2, we introduced an auditory distraction condition that shared similarities with maintaining a conversation. Overall, the DCD group produced a larger variance in heading and needed more steering adjustments on straight roads, compared to age-matched controls. When turning bends, the DCD group showed greater difficulty in controlling steering while regulating their speed with the accelerator pedal but this was less problematic when using the brake. The DCD group also responded slower than the control group to pedestrians who walked towards their path. The auditory distraction in Experiment 2 had no visible effects on steering control but increased the reaction times to pedestrians in both groups. We discuss the results in terms of the visuomotor control in steering and the learning of optimal mappings between optic flow and vehicle control.

Adaptive control in the face of uncertainty involves making online predictions about events in order to plan actions to reliably achieve desirable outcomes. However, we often face situations in which the effects of our actions are probabilistic (e.g., returns on our investments), and the environment itself is dynamic, - it can change irrespective of any action we decide to take, and in a relatively stable or unstable way (e.g., economic climate). Therefore, the problem of control concerns learning to isolate the effects that are generated directly by our actions, from those that occur independently of them. We face this problem in a host of uncertain dynamic environments: ecological (using fertilizers to increase crop yield), economic (investing in real estate), industrial (operating nuclear power plants), mechanical (driving cars) and medical (stemming outbreaks of disease). Thus far there has been little attempt at a synthesis of the amassing research directed towards understanding control in the face of uncertainty. The aim of this book is to bring together theoretical and empirical research from disparate disciplines spanning Social, Cognitive and Clinical Psychology, Human Factors and Neuroscience to Engineering and Machine learning. It serves as a round up of the different techniques used to examine issues concerning control (prediction, agency, causality, uncertainty) and unifies a substantial amount of disparate research. The general framework (Monitoring and control- MC framework) used to achieve this proposes two central ideas (agency, uncertainty) that have important ramifications across disciplines. In sum, control processes involve self-regulatory mechanisms that enable us to make subjective estimates of success, which helps to anchor our interpretation of uncertain events. In addition, these estimates are integrated with estimations of rates of change of the events in the environment which helps us track the outcomes we aim to control.

Achieved #1 Best Seller in Exercise and Fitness on Amazon (USA and Canada) and called "the best book on exercise I've ever read" by best-selling author Dan Heath (Made to Stick, Switch), "a much-needed guide for both health professionals and the general public" by Pedro Teixeira (past president of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity), "a better approach to physical activity" by Barbara Ainsworth (past president of ACSM) and "it will change the way you think about exercise.." by Brian Wansink (Mindless Eating),  No Sweat has a fresh combination of science and teaches a method that individuals, professionals and academics are all using.

No Sweat shows the health coaching method that Segar has been using with her clients for 20 years (that has a published long-term evaluation funded by the NIH) and an integration of key motivation, decision making, self-regulation, and marketing science. Through client stories, she shows how to leverage principles of motivation, decision making and information processing to facilitate autonomous motivation and the prioritization of self-care so people are able to sustain health behaviors throughout their busy lives.

Because it integrates key science related to creating sustainable health-related behaviors, No Sweat is being adopted as a course text in undergraduate and graduate curriculum. For a free Teaching and Discussion Guide to use No Sweat as a course text please email Michelle Segar or get it from the book page on her website, MichelleSegar.com.

See the attached sample chapter. (No Sweat is available for sale in local bookstores and on Amazon and Barnes & Nobel).

Prospective hindsight involves generating an explanation for a future event as if it had already happened; i.e., one goes forward in time, and then looks back. In order to examine how shifts in perspective might influence people's perceptions of events, we investigated two possible factors: temporal perspective (whether an event is set in the future or past) and uncertainty (whether the event's occurrence is certain or uncertain). In the first experiment, temporal perspective showed little influence while outcome uncertainty strongly affected the nature of explanations for events. Explanations for sure events tended to be longer, to contain a higher proportion of episodic reasons, and to be expressed in past tense. Evidence from the second experiment supports the view that uncertainty mediates not the amount of time spent explaining, but rather subjects' choice of explanation type. The implications of these findings for the use of temporal perspective in decision aiding are discussed.

The use of driver behavior has been considered a complex way to solve road safety complications. Car drivers are usually involved in various risky driving factors which lead to accidents where people are fatally or seriously injured. The present study aims to dissect and rank the significant driver behavior factors related to road safety by applying an integrated multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model, which is structured as a hierarchy with at least one 5 5 (or bigger) pairwise comparison matrix (PCM). A real-world, complex decision-making problem was selected to evaluate the possible application of the proposed model (driver behavior preferences related to road safety problems). The application of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) alone, by precluding layman participants, might cause a loss of reliable information in the case of the decision-making systems with big PCMs. Evading this tricky issue, we used the Best Worst Method (BWM) to make the layman's evaluator task easier and timesaving. Therefore, the AHP-BWM model was found to be a suitable integration to evaluate risky driver behavior factors within a designed three-level hierarchical structure. The model results found the most significant driver behavior factors that influence road safety for each level, based on evaluator responses on the driver behavior questionnaire (DBQ). Moreover, the output vector of weights in the integrated model is more consistent, with results for 5 5 PCMs or bigger. The proposed AHP-BWM model can be used for PCMs with scientific data organized by traditional means.

Nowadays, balancing work and family is getting more demanding, finding time for oneself is difficult, and the demands of work are overwhelming; life is becoming more stressful. Stress has become one of the factors that decision-makers must contend with in most life-or-death situations. In business, stress can be detrimental to the success of managers when making key decisions. This paper presents an exploratory study on the effect of stress on decision makers. It focuses on the impact of stress throughout the decision-making process and not only at the time of decision. It also highlights the importance of mitigating stress in order to reach an effective decision. The impact of stress is studied from two perspectives, one of the decision makers themselves and another of their subordinates. The findings of the research give a holistic view on stress and its impact on decision makers, and an insight into business stress mitigation strategies. The research adopts a quantitative approac...

Behavioral Insights in Peace Building and Development: Workshop on 29-30 August 2019

The Research Centre "Poverty, Equity and Growth in Developing Countries" at Göttingen University will host the workshop "Behavioral Insights in Peace Building and Development" between the 29th and 30th of August in Göttingen. It is organized by Prof. Marcela Ibañez Diaz, Ph.D., Professor for behavioral development economics at the Faculty of Business and Economics.

The objective of the workshop is to bring together academics working in the areas of behavioral economics, conflict and more general development economics to discuss the pathways to peacebuilding in conflict-affected areas.

The keynote speakers are Ana Maria Arjona, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Northwestern University (USA), and Chris Blattman, Professor in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago (USA).

https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/behavioral+insights+in+peace+building+and+development%3A+workshop+on+29-30+august+2019/611579.html

Much can be learned from a comparative analysis of the different corporate governance practices of Canada and the People’s Republic of China, specifically with respect to the duties of directors in overseeing registered corporations. This paper examines the fiduciary duties of directors expressed in statutory instruments in Canada and China. Analyses herein incorporate statutes and corporate law, secondary literature, newspaper commentary, and select jurisprudence, to help elucidate the similarities and differences between the two countries’ regulatory frameworks, from the perspective of corporate governance and responsible business decision-making.

This study provides an independent, outside-in estimate of the cost and schedule risks of nuclear waste storage projects. Based on a reference class of 216 past, comparable projects, risk of cost overrun was found to be 202% or less, with 80% certainty, i.e., 20% risk of an overrun above 202%. Based on a reference class of 200 past, comparable projects, risk of schedule overrun was found to be 104% or less, with 80% certainty, i.e., 20% risk of overrun above 104%. Cost risk and schedule risk are both substantial for nuclear waste storage projects.