ABSTRACT
Judgement and decision making behaviour can be studied from various perspectives. The most common distinction is between the normative and the descriptive approach. In the normative approach the decision problem is well defined and there exist axiomatic theories that prescribe which decision a rational person should take in order to maximise some goal. The descriptive approach, on the other hand, is not so much interested in what rational subjects should do, but what ‘real’ subjects actually do. Its primary aim is to understand and to explain how individuals process available information in order to arrive at a judgement or a choice. Descriptive decision science does not consider individual differences in decision making as deviations from optimal behaviour, but it views them as conceptually relevant differences that should be explained by, among others, motivational and cognitive factors.
