There is no one descriptive theory of human choice. Instead, there are different theoretically and empirically-based approaches for describing choice behavior. This paper briefly overviews five approaches: bounded rationality, prospect theory, choice strategies, recognition-primed decision making, and image theory. These approaches are descriptive in the sense that they describe certain aspects of how people actually make choices. They contrast with prescriptive approaches, such as decision analysis or other economic-based theories (or models) of choice behavior, which prescribe how one should make decisions, but do not necessarily describe choice behavior.
BOUNDED RATIONALITY
The concept of bounded rationality is attributed to Nobel laureate Herbert Simon (e.g., see Simon, 1955, 1979; also Hogarth, 1987), who argued that humans lack both the knowledge and computational skill required to make choices in a manner compatible with economic notions of rational behavior. The rational...
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© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Adelman, L. (2001). Choice theory. In: Gass, S.I., Harris, C.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-0611-X_112
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-0611-X_112
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