Reasoning and Decision Making

This volume brings together two hitherto separate aspects of the psychology of thinking: how people reason, and how they make judgements and decisions. This exploration is timely for two major reasons. First, reasoning and decision making are increasingly examined in the role of reason in the construction of preferences, and students of deduction are examining the role of values and preferences in reasoning. Second, research in the two domains has revealed a striking parallel; human thinkers make radical departures from the canons of rationality - from formal logic in the case of reasoning, and from expected utility theory in the case of decision making. The two departures have forced social scientists to think again about the nature of human mentality. The contributors are all internationally known experts, and their chapters range over the nature of rationality, how individuals construct reasons for choices, how they are led astray by focusing on only certain aspects of situations, how they assess the strength of inductions, how they reach decisions on juries, and how their performance can be improved. Reasoning and Decision Making will be suitable for advanced undergraduate reading and beyond, and will be of interest to psychologists, decision theorists and philosophers.