Why scientific Psychology
Because this is the kind of course I have always wanted to do. Psychology is a science since its very beginning as an academic discipline in the 19th century. In my opinion, some others disciplines claiming to be "scientific" still have a long road ahead to be as truly empirical and experimental as the Psychology.
[20-10-2008] Judgment and decision-making
Created a page. If you have the smallest interest in the issue, please have a look at it:
[17-10-2008] My long-term relationship with behavioural decision-making
Though, for me, now, it sounds "cocky", it shows at least some knowledge on what I was talking about: cost-benefit analysis.
Some references and sources for cost-benefit analysis from MAUT:
Although not an expert on cost-benefit analysis, I have some training in decision-making analysis, especially from the behavioural side. I think that there are basic references applicable for any decision-making (or trade-off) problem that cannot be ignored. I also think they apply to the cost-benefit problem in the (..) project.
The first reference is
Keeney, R. L. and H. Raiffa (1993): Decisions with Multiple Objectives. Preferences and Value Tradeoffs. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (1st edition published by Wiley in 1976)
This is maybe the most cited reference for the Multi-Attribute Utility Theory, or MAUT. This theory provides a complete framework for optimizing decisions or trade-offs with multiple criteria under uncertainty. Although deeply rooted in mathematical formalities, like axiomatic approaches and long demonstrations, the book is full of practical applications and recommendations in applied settings (one of the applications is "evaluating computer systems", chapter 7.5 , p. 409).
The process of the decision problem in MAUT is quite similar to that outlined in the deliverable. However, and opposite to what is said in the deliverable ("the degree to which economic factors can be quantified and monetised in the strict sense that conventional cost-benefit analysis requires has not been fully determined yet"), Keeney and Raiffa, and in general the MAUT approach, provides practical methods to measure utility or value functions, which may or may not be functions of monetary value. Actually, in most if not all of the real context decision problems, the attributes under consideration are not direct functions of money, as, e.g., long-term value of assets, environmental impacts of industrial operations, and, of course, the criteria in clinical decision-making.
I know for sure that the MAUT approach has been applied in many applied and real contexts, and think that this can be a useful approach for the problem in the (..) project, i.e., trade-offs between costs and quality in multimedia interpersonal communication systems. May I also recommend two journals, Journal of Multi Criteria Decision Analysis and the Journal of Behavioral Decision Analysis, both published by Wiley Interscience (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/), and also available in Internet. I can also recommend a tool available in the Internet: http://www.hipre.hut.fi/.
Another basic reference in this context is:
Von Winterfeld, D. and W. Edwards (1986): Decision Analysis and Behavioral Research. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.
This is a very readable, comprehensive and practical book that not only describes the application of MAUT, but also presents the behavioral research on eliciting values, and the most common biases, which is a classic problem in Experimental Psychology since the fifties. Just to show the similarity of the process in MAUT and that described in the deliverable, I copy here the decision process outlined in the book:
1. Define alternatives and value-relevant attributes.
2. Evaluate each alternative separately on each attribute.
3. Assign relative weights to the attributes.
4. Aggregate the weights of attributes and the single-attribute evaluations of alternatives to obtain an overall evaluation of alternatives.
5. Perform sensitivity analyses and make recommendations.
(von Winterfeld and Edwards, p. 273).
Summarizing:
- There are formal and practical approaches to decision making (and in my opinion to cost-benefit analysis) not exclusively based upon monetary value functions. MAUT is a very well known approach.
- There are several methods to empirically find out the important attributes in decisions, and to quantify them in the terms required by mathematical models, that can be perfectly applied in the context of the (..) project.
