The study of behavioral decision making has recently expanded into the area of accounting and auditing. This branch of research seeks to understand the cognitive processes that govern such necessary functions as the pricing of products and services, evaluating corporate performance, granting credit to prospective borrowers, and investing in financial securities. In Judgment and Decision-Making Research in Accounting and Auditing, editors Robert and Alison Ashton present and review more than twenty years of research in decision-making science. The book analyzes the judgments that business...

This book offers an overview of recent research on the psychology of judgment and decision making, the field that investigates the processes by which people draw conclusions, reach evaluations, and make choices. An introductory, historically oriented chapter provides a way of viewing the overall structure of the field, its recent trends, and its possible directions. Subsequent sections present significant recent papers by prominent researchers, organized to reveal the currents, connections, and controversies that animate the field. Current trends in the field are illustrated with papers from...

By exposing readers to a wide variety of new and promising perspectives, this book enhances the scope of judgment and decision-making research. It bridges the gap between traditional paradigms and new lines of inquiry; expands awareness of new theories and approaches; and demonstrates how alternative approaches can enhance understanding.

When people make judgments and choices, especially when faced with uncertainty, they behave in a manner that seems complex and irrational. Cognitive psychologists have identified and organized these patterns of behavior into a descriptively accurate model of human judgments and choices called behavioral decision theory. Incorporating this theory's insights in public policy analysis will enhance our ability to design better policies and enable us to understand the limits of effective regulation.

Justice, equity, and fairness are central concerns of everyday life. We frequently assess the fairness of individual acts, social programs, and institutional policies. This book explores how distributions of costs and benefits determine our intuitions about fairness. Some chapters examine the extent to which individual behavior deviates from normative theories of justice. This comparison requires an answer to the question of how fair distributions of resources or burdens should be made. Competing theories, such as utilitarianism and economic efficiency, are discussed. Other chapters...

What makes some decisions easy and others difficult? Current research in judgment and decision making indicates that conflict plays a decisive role in decision making processes. The essays in this book address questions about the causes of conflict and its effects on decision making and emotions, particularly (but not only) the emotion of regret. Several chapters address the role of attribute tradeoffs, such as that between money and risk, in the measurement of values for policy purposes. The chapters provide overviews of several current research programs and present new data.