Decision science

from Ramsey to dual process theories

Nils-Eric Sahlin

Annika Wallin

Johannes Persson

pp. 129-143

in: Horacio Arló-Costa, Jeffrey Helzner (eds), Foundations of the decision sciences, Synthese 172 (1), 2010.

Abstract

The hypothesis that human reasoning and decision-making can be roughly modeled by Expected Utility Theory has been at the core of decision science. Accumulating evidence has led researchers to modify the hypothesis. One of the latest additions to the field is Dual Process theory, which attempts to explain variance between participants and tasks when it comes to deviations from Expected Utility Theory. It is argued that Dual Process theories at this point cannot replace previous theories, since they, among other things, lack a firm conceptual framework, and have no means of producing independent evidence for their case.