ABSTRACT
A somewhat underrated issue in the study of individual decision making is how best to for mulate mathematically the domain of choice. This was discussed at some length in Chapter 1, and I ended up using an algebraic structure having two major features. It allows one to dis tinguish easily between gains and losses, and it treats each alternative as being based on its own underlying chance experiment that is independent of other chance experiments. Not only does this accord closely with experimental practice, but also with the way that most people structure explicit choice situations such as, for example, when deciding on a mode of travel, e.g., car, bus, or airplane, or a choice by a patient among alternative therapies, e.g., do noth ing, suigeiy, radiation, or chemotherapy. The impact that the domain formulation has on the resulting theories can be considerable, as is elaborated in Section 8.3.6.
