Decision Psychology

Descriptive versus Normative

In all types of research on the psychology of decision making, including medical decision making, the question arises whether the researcher is interested in describing how decisions are actually made by individuals confronted with a decision-making task (descriptive decision making) or whether the researcher is interested in describing how decisions that are actually made by individuals compare with a model or framework of how decisions should be made (normative decision making).

Population versus the Individual

The basic distinction with medical decision making is whether the decision making under consideration is decision making regarding the population as a whole (or at least sizeable groups within that population) versus the individual patient. The difference between these types of decision making can be seen in the arena of immunization against disease, where the population may benefit by the immunization program but the individual may bear the brunt of death or severe morbidity from the adverse outcomes associated with the vaccine.

Subjects

The subjects of studies of decision-making psychology may include hypotheses about choices, judgments, or other types of reasoning and include as study participants citizens, patients, healthcare providers (physicians and nurses), and other members of the healthcare team (social workers, chaplains, among others) and associated administrative teams (for example, information technologists), as well as students or trainees in all of these areas and more.

Psychological Models

When normative models are tested in the psychology of decision making, these models may include expected utility theory or game theory as well as psychological models, such as prospect theory.

These normative models do not exhaust the models of decision-making psychology, which also include preference theories, emotive theories, and ethical and moral theories.