IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v35y2015i10p1911-1918.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reasoned Decision Making Without Math? Adaptability and Robustness in Response to Surprise

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Smithson
  • Yakov Ben‐Haim

Abstract

Many real‐world planning and decision problems are far too uncertain, too variable, and too complicated to support realistic mathematical models. Nonetheless, we explain the usefulness, in these situations, of qualitative insights from mathematical decision theory. We demonstrate the integration of info‐gap robustness in decision problems in which surprise and ignorance are predominant and where personal and collective psychological factors are critical. We present practical guidelines for employing adaptable‐choice strategies as a proxy for robustness against uncertainty. These guidelines include being prepared for more surprises than we intuitively expect, retaining sufficiently many options to avoid premature closure and conflicts among preferences, and prioritizing outcomes that are steerable, whose consequences are observable, and that do not entail sunk costs, resource depletion, or high transition costs. We illustrate these concepts and guidelines with the example of the medical management of the 2003 SARS outbreak in Vietnam.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Smithson & Yakov Ben‐Haim, 2015. "Reasoned Decision Making Without Math? Adaptability and Robustness in Response to Surprise," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(10), pages 1911-1918, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:35:y:2015:i:10:p:1911-1918
    DOI: 10.1111/risa.12397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12397
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/risa.12397?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dhar, Ravi & Nowlis, Stephen M, 1999. "The Effect of Time Pressure on Consumer Choice Deferral," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 25(4), pages 369-384, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gabriele Bammer & Michael O’Rourke & Deborah O’Connell & Linda Neuhauser & Gerald Midgley & Julie Thompson Klein & Nicola J. Grigg & Howard Gadlin & Ian R. Elsum & Marcel Bursztyn & Elizabeth A. Fulto, 2020. "Expertise in research integration and implementation for tackling complex problems: when is it needed, where can it be found and how can it be strengthened?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-16, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Greenacre, Luke & Martin, James & Patrick, Sarah & Jaeger, Victoria, 2016. "Boundaries of the centrality effect during product choice," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 32-38.
    2. Simonson, Itamar & Drolet, Aimee L., 2003. "Anchoring Effects on Consumers' Willingness-to-Pay and Willingness-to-Accept," Research Papers 1787, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    3. Ryo Kato & Takahiro Hoshino & Daisuke Moriwaki & Shintaro Okazaki, 2022. "Mobile Targeting: Exploring the Role of Area Familiarity, Store Knowledge, and Promotional Incentives," Discussion Paper Series DP2022-10, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    4. Mourali, Mehdi & Yang, Zhiyong & Pons, Frank & Hassay, Derek, 2018. "Consumer power and choice deferral: The role of anticipated regret," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 81-99.
    5. Sabrina Berens & Joachim Funke, 2020. "A vignette study of option refusal and decision deferral as two forms of decision avoidance: Situational and personal predictors," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-25, October.
    6. Cheng, Yin-Hui & Chuang, Shih-Chieh & Pei-I Yu, Annie & Lai, Wan-Ting, 2019. "Change in your wallet, change your choice: The effect of the change-matching heuristic on choice," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 67-76.
    7. Ologunebi, John & Taiwo, Ebenezer, 2024. "Personalized ad Content and Individual User Preference: A boost for Conversion Rates in the UK E-commerce Business," MPRA Paper 120595, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Kohei Kawaguchi & Kosuke Uetake & Yasutora Watanabe, 2019. "Effectiveness of Product Recommendations Under Time and Crowd Pressures," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(2), pages 253-273, March.
    9. Sharma, Piyush & Roy, Rajat & Rabbanee, Fazlul K., 2020. "Interactive effects of situational and enduring involvement with perceived crowding and time pressure in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 88-100.
    10. Xi, Nannan & Hamari, Juho, 2021. "Shopping in virtual reality: A literature review and future agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 37-58.
    11. Malodia, Suresh & Kaur, Puneet & Ractham, Peter & Sakashita, Mototaka & Dhir, Amandeep, 2022. "Why do people avoid and postpone the use of voice assistants for transactional purposes? A perspective from decision avoidance theory," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 605-618.
    12. Axel Berger & Tobias Schlager & David E. Sprott & Andreas Herrmann, 2018. "Gamified interactions: whether, when, and how games facilitate self–brand connections," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 652-673, July.
    13. Marieke Huysentruyt & Eva Lefevere, 2010. "Child Benefit Support and Method of Payment: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Belgium," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 163-184, May.
    14. Jesse Atkinson & Alain de Janvry & Craig McIntosh & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2013. "Prompting Microfinance Borrowers to Save: A Field Experiment from Guatemala," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(1), pages 21-64.
    15. Jeanne Lallement, 2010. "L'impact de la pression temporelle sur le traitement des informations," Post-Print hal-01488477, HAL.
    16. Satoko Kubota & Hirotsugu Sawano & Hiroichi Kono, 2017. "Japanese consumer preferences for additive-free wine labeling," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-15, December.
    17. Richard C. Hanna & Scott D. Swain & Paul D. Berger, 2016. "Optimizing time-limited price promotions," Journal of Marketing Analytics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(2), pages 77-92, July.
    18. Lange, Jens & Krahé, Barbara, 2014. "The effects of information form and domain-specific knowledge on choice deferral," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 92-104.
    19. Som, Anirban & Lee, Yih Hwai, 2012. "The joint effects of choice assortment and regulatory focus on choice behavior," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 202-209.
    20. Rob Kim Marjerison & Jiamin Hu & Hantao Wang, 2022. "The Effect of Time-Limited Promotion on E-Consumers’ Public Self-Consciousness and Purchase Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-23, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:35:y:2015:i:10:p:1911-1918. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.