Rational Choice in an Uncertain World

I′m teaching a cass on judgment processes and will recommend the book "Rational Choice in an Uncertain World" as introduction material. Particularly chapter two and three give a good and easy introduction to the history of research on decision making and judgment and the lense model framework the class will mainly focus on. I think it will be an perfect introduction that allows students to get a good oveview before we go into more details reading journal articles on specific aspects of judgment processes."

• Chapter 1 - Thinking and Deciding1.1 Decision Making Is a Skill1.2 Thinking: automatic and Controlled1.3 The Computational Model of the Mind1.4 Through the Darkest Psychoanalytical Theory and Behaviorism to Cognition1.5 Quality of Choice: Rationality1.6 The Invention of Modern Decision TheoryChapter 2 - What Is Decision Making?2.1 Definition of a Decision2.2 Picturing Decisions2.3 Decision Quality, Revisited2.4 Incomplete Thinking: A Legal Example2.5 Over-Inclusive Thinking: Sunk Costs2.6 The Rationality of Considering Only the Future2.7 The Rest of This BookChapter 3 - A General Framework for Judgment3.1 A Conceptual Framework for Judgment and Prediction3.2 Research With the Lens Model Framework3.3 Capturing Judgment in Statistical Models3.4 How Do Statistical Models Beat Human Judgment?3.5 Practical Implications of the Surprising Success of the Linear Model3.6 Objections and Rebuttals3.7 The Role of Judgment in Choices and DecisionsChapter 4 - The Fundamental Judgment Strategy: Anchoring and Adjustment4.1 Salient Values4.2 Anchoring and (Insufficient) Adjustment4.3 Anchoring on Ourselves4.4 Anchoring the Past in the PresentChapter 5 - Judging Heuristically5.1 Going Beyond the Information Given5.2 Estimating Frequencies and probabilities5.3 Availability of Memories5.4 Biased Samples in Memory5.5 Biased Sampling From Memory5.6 Availability to the Imagination5.7 From Availability to Probablility and Causality5.8 Judgment by Similarity: Same Old Things5.9 Representative Thinking5.10 The Ratio RuleChapter 6 - Explanation-Based Judgments6.1 Everyone Likes a Good Story6.2 The Conjunction Probabliity Error (Again)6.3 Judging From Explanations6.4 Legal Scenarios: The Best Story Wins in the Courtroom6.5 Scenarios About Ourselves6.6 Scenarios About the Unthinkable6.7 Hindsight: Reconstructing the Past6.8 Sometimes It′s Better to ForgetChapter 7 - Chance and Cause7.1 Misconceptions About Chance7.2 Illusions of Control7.3 Seeing Causal Structure Where It Isn′t7.4 Regression Toward the Mean7.5 Reflections on Our Inability to Accept RandomnessChapter 8 - Thinking Rationally About Uncertainty8.1 What to Do About the Biases8.2 Getting Started Thinking in Terms of Probabilities8.3 Comprehending the Situation Being Judged8.4 Testing for Rationality8.5 How to Think About Inverse Probabilities8.6 Avoiding Subadditivity and Conjunction Errors8.7 The Other Side of the Coin: The Probability of a Disjunction of Events8.8 Changing Our Minds: Bayes′s Theorem8.9 Statistical Decision Theory8.10 Concluding Comment on RationalityChapter 9 - Evaluating Consequences: Fundamental Preferences9.1 What Good is Happiness?9.2 The Role of Emotions in Evaluations9.3 The Value of Money9.4 Decision Utility -- Predicting What We will Value9.5 Constructing ValuesChapter 10 - From Preferences to Choices10.1 Deliberate Choices Among Complex Alternatives10.2 Ordering Alternatives10.3 Grouping Alternatives10.4 Choosing Alternatives10.5 How to Make Good ChoicesChapter 11 - A Rational Decision Theory11.1 Formally Defining Rationality11.2 Making Theories Understandable -- The Axiomatic Method11.3 Defining Rationality: Expected Utility Theory11.4 Traditional Objections to the Axioms11.5 The Shoulds and Dos of the System11.6 Some Bum Raps for Decision AnalysisChapter 12 - A Descriptive Decision Theory12.1 Non-expected Utility Theories12.2 Gain-Loss Framing Effects12.3 Loss Aversion12.4 Look to the FutureChapter 13 - What′s Next? New Directions in Research on Judgment and Decision Making13.1 The Neuroscience of Decisions13.2 Emotions in Decision Making13.3 The Rise of Experimental Methods to Study Dynamic Decisions13.4 Do We Really Know Where We′re Headed?Chapter 14 - In Praise of Uncertainty14.1 Uncertainty as Negative14.2 The Illusion of Hedonic Certainty14.3 The Price of Denying Uncertainty14.4 Two Cheers for Uncertainty14.5 Living With Uncertainty