ABSTRACT
The recent shift from normative to descriptive analyses of decisions, stimulated by observed departures from normative prescriptions, has led researchers to focus more closely on the requirements set by the SEU model by comparing them with real decision behaviour. However, it seems that, of the two components of the SEU equation, subjective probability has attracted relatively more attention than the concept of utility, as evidenced by the disproportionately higher number of theories explaining deviations from the normative prescriptions concerning probability than those concerning utility, and the relatively greater amount of space devoted to the former than the latter in textbooks on judgement and decision making (cf. Plous, 1993). One of the consequences of this asymmetry may be the commonly perceived closer affiliation of decision theory to mathematical psychology or economics rather than to social psychology or the psychology of affect and motivation, i.e., these domains which naturally deal with ‘hot’ or affect-laden cognitions and hence whose relevance to studies on utility seems obvious.
