Norms and Habits of Decision Making Under Certainty (1955)

Abstract

We can prescribe norms, describe habits, and possibly, teach habits that approach norms. This applies to norms and habits of thinking as well as to norms and habits of decision making.

Thinking is as unnatural and arduous an activity for human beings as walking on two legs is for monkeys. Arnold Toynbee (Greek historical thought, preface to 2d edition).

Men must not allow themselves to be swayed by their moods, believing one thing at one moment and another at another. Bertrand Russell (Conquest of happiness)

Industry is discovering that the man who can run one company can run another one making an entirely different product, because the qualities required for most top jobs are virtually identical — the ability… to make sound decisions quickly and firmly. Time, Oct. 12,1953. (‘The great man hunt: Industry needs more good executives’).

Research under contract of Cowles Commission with the Office of Naval Research.

With acknowledgments to Roy Radner and Christopher Winsten, Cowles Commission; T. W. Anderson, Columbia University; Ward Edwards, Johns Hopkins University; Conrad Oort, Fellow of Committee on Behavioral Sciences, University of Chicago.