Decision Making and Measurement: Search for a Coherent System of Theories Interlocked by Measurements

本提案概述了一个雄心勃勃的调查行为理论的决策与建立一个连贯的方法测量效用和价值的目标。先前对预期效用的研究产生了两个结果：首先，已经报道了各种显著和可靠的违反效用理论的行为。其次，人们提出了几种标准理论的变体来解释这些违反。提出的研究旨在开始建立一个基于行为的连贯框架。这项研究的核心思想是寻找各种任务中潜在行为的共同效用尺度。目的是确定是否有可能提供一个连贯的效用方程系统来描述行为决策。由首席研究员在其他领域开发的程序将应用于开发研究框架。所提出的方法有可能解释广泛的现象，并解决文献中的一些争议。即使提议的努力没有成功，实验也会产生有趣的新发现，这将增强对风险决策的理解。总之，这个项目的潜在回报是可观的。

This proposal outlines an ambitious investigation of behavioral theories of decision making with the goal of building a coherent method for measurement of utility and value. Previous studies of expected utility have produced two results: First, a variety of significant and reliable violations of utility theory have been reported. Second, several variations of the standard theory have been proposed to account for these violations. The proposed research is designed to begin the construction of a behaviorally- based coherent framework. A central idea behind the proposed research is the search for a common utility scale underlying behavior in a variety of tasks. The goal is to determine whether it is possible to provide a coherent system of utility equations to describe behavioral decision making. Procedures developed by the principal investigator in other domains will be applied to develop a framework for the research. The proposed approach has the potential to account for a wide range of phenomena and to resolve several controviersies in the literature. Even if the proposed effort does not work out, the experiments will yield interesting new findings which will enhance understanding of risky decisions. In all, the potential return from this project is substantial.