Teaching Decision Behavior: A Conference at the University of Michigan (May-August 2005)

近年来，决策行为研究取得了许多令人振奋的突破。例如，我们现在知道了特定的慢性决策缺陷在大脑中的具体位置。我们知道，在世界的某些地区，人们预测未来事件的机制的某些方面与其他地区截然不同。我们还知道，人们的冒险行为有时是认知和情绪复杂但有序相互作用的结果。这些进展承诺对自然决策过程有更深入的科学理解。它们还为我们提供了指导，以防止我们社会的组织和机构至少出现一些如此熟悉的破坏性崩溃，从失败的公司治理做法和规则(例如安然)到航天飞机灾难，再到每年导致数千人死亡的日常医疗差错。然而，不幸的是，这一伟大的承诺能否接近实现还值得怀疑。一个主要原因是，美国只有一小部分本科生和研究生可以上好的、扎实的决策行为课程。因此，我们可以预期的利用正在创造的决策行为知识的绝大多数人注定会不幸地对此一无所知。也许更令人不安的是，这一事实必然意味着，该领域未来的研究不可能取得应有的进展，因为受过培训的科学家将很少有能力完成所需的工作。此外，即使是目前的研究也受到缺乏渴望、好奇和要求苛刻的学生的影响，这些学生在每个充满活力的科学领域都是必不可少的催化剂。拟议的努力旨在解决这一问题。该项目的核心是一个小型、密集的“工作”会议，随后是印刷和电子出版物以及主要专业学会年会上的专题讨论会。与会者将包括决策学者，他们不仅作为研究人员证明了自己的卓越，而且作为大师、传播者和创新者也证明了自己的卓越。受邀者还将包括教育技术和技术开发以及传播方面的专家。在会议之前，将进行初步调查，旨在帮助与会者了解决策行为指导问题的全部规模和维度，以及其基础，例如，在教师和学生激励方面。大会的会议将包括专门讨论决策行为课程中应该优先考虑的主题的会议，讨论目前决策课程匮乏的原因，讨论在其他地方确立其价值的技术和技术，以及开发新方法和工具的手段。在他们解散之前，与会者将设计并启动具体的行动计划。这些计划将指导完成和传播会议出版物的工作。同样重要的是，这些计划还将在该国和其他地方的机构中产生具体的教学和发展努力。

In recent years, decision behavior scholarship has achieved numerous exciting breakthroughs. For instance, we now know where particular chronic decision-making deficits are localized in the brain. We know that certain aspects of people's mechanisms for anticipating future events are characteristically different in some parts of the world than in others. And we also know that people's risk-taking behavior sometimes results from a complex-but orderly-interaction of cognition and emotion. Such advances promise more than a deeper scientific understanding of natural decision processes. They also offer hope for guidance in preventing at least some of the devastating breakdowns of our society's organizations and institutions that are so familiar, from failed corporate governance practices and rules (e.g., Enron) to space shuttle disasters to everyday medical errors that kill thousands each year. Unfortunately, however, it is doubtful that this great promise will come close to being realized. A major reason is that good, solid courses in decision behavior are available to only a remarkably small fraction of the nation's undergraduates and graduate students. Thus, the great majority of the people we could expect to exploit the decision behavior knowledge that is being created are destined to remain woefully ignorant of it. Perhaps even more troubling, this fact necessarily means that future research in the field cannot possibly progress as it should because there will be few trained scientists capable of doing the required work. Moreover, even current research suffers from the absence of the eager, inquisitive, and demanding students who serve as essential catalysts in every vibrant scientific field. The proposed effort is intended to redress this problem. The core of the project is a small, intensive, "working" conference that is followed by print and electronic publications as well as symposia at annual meetings of major professional societies. Conference participants will include decision scholars who have demonstrated their excellence not just as researchers, but also as master teachers, communicators, and innovators. The invitees will also include experts in the development of instructional techniques and technologies as well as dissemination. The conference will be preceded by initial surveys intended to help inform conferees of the full magnitude and dimensions of the decision behavior instruction problem and also its foundations, e.g., in faculty and student incentives. The sessions of the conference will include ones devoted to the topics that arguably should have priority in decision behavior courses, to reasons for the current dearth of decision courses, to techniques and technologies that have established their value elsewhere, and to means for developing new methods and tools. Before they disperse, conferees will design and set in motion concrete action plans. These plans will guide efforts to complete and disseminate the conference's publications. Just as importantly, these plans will also result in specific teaching and development efforts at institutions in this country and elsewhere.