ABSTRACT

The problem of preferential choice and judgment is an old one in psychology. Many years of research have been devoted to understanding how people make decisions in situations where one alternative is better on some attributes of value, whereas another alternative is better on other attributes. For example, as a faculty member in a psychology department you might be faced with the decision of which of two applicants to hire. One applicant (alternative) might offer more potential as a teacher (an attribute of value), whereas the other applicant offers more potential as a researcher and as a colleague. As another example, as a faculty member you also might be faced with deciding among alternative investments for your retirement funds. The alternative investments will offer various combinations of the attributes of risk and return. Generally, the higher the risk, the higher the return. How would you go about processing the information about the various alternatives in order to make a choice?