Decisions Under Uncertainty Rational, Irrational, and Non-rational

Abstract

The author, Associate Professor in Duke University's Department of Sociology and Anthropology, discusses the diverse approaches to decision theory. He holds that probabilistic, rational decision models are restricted to situations in the middle range of importance and cannot be generalized to life decisions. Irrational models, which take psychodynamic factors into account, remain insufficient to account for the whole range of decision process. A non-rational model is proposed, and its assumptions are shown to underlie a variety of decisions that have been studied. The author thanks David M. Shaw and Ida H. Simpson for many helpful suggestions.