Decision Making

Everybody makes decisions whether they are trivial or important, affecting ones own life or the lives of others. This area of study has generated much research as how we make decisions has very important mundane implications. A study by Armstrong et al. (2002) showed how just the presentation of data can affect which treatment is chosen for hospital patients. 451 individuals were shown either a survival curve for a hypothetical treatment, a mortality curve or both curves …

…was 60 or 6 there was no framing effect and there was a “clear preference for the probablistic outcome” using smaller patient numbers (Eysenck and Keane, 2001,p.484). When using large patient numbers Wang was however, able to replicate Khanemann and Tversky’s results.In contrast to these arguments Betsch and Franzen (1998) found that when presented with Khanemann and Tversky’s Disease problem as a statistical problem rather than a medical one the commonly found preferences were eliminated.