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Vanderbilt University Law School

Series

Decision making

Law and Psychology

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Risk Realization, Emotion, And Policy Making, Chris Guthrie Jan 2004

Risk Realization, Emotion, And Policy Making, Chris Guthrie

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In their study of terrorism and SARS, Professor Feigenson and his colleagues report "significant positive correlations between people's risk perceptions and their negative affect." In their review of the judgment and decision-making literature, Professor Slovic and his colleagues document the interplay between reason and emotion in assessing risk. And in the context of a soldier's concerns for himself and his family, Professor Moran provides a powerful narrative of fear. But what happens when such threats are actually realized? Do we accurately predict the emotional impact of such events? Or are there meaningful and predictable differences between the feelings we forecast …


Prospect Theory, Risk Preference, And The Law, Chris Guthrie Jan 2003

Prospect Theory, Risk Preference, And The Law, Chris Guthrie

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

To understand how people behave in an uncertain world - and to make viable recommendations about how the law should try to shape that behavior - legal scholars must employ a model or theory of decision making. Only with an understanding of how people are likely to respond to legal rules can legal scholars, judges, legislators, and regulators craft rules that are likely to encourage desirable behavior and discourage undesirable behavior. Rather than rely on rational choice theory, behavioral law and economics scholars (or legal decision theorists) have turned to Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky's "prospect theory" to inform their …


Are Individuals Bayesian Decision Makers?, W. Kip Viscusi May 1985

Are Individuals Bayesian Decision Makers?, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

There has been increasing interest in whether normative models of individual choice under uncertainty accord with actual behavior. These concerns have been much greater than in other economic contexts because of the particularly severe demands such decisions place on the rationality of the decision maker. The limitations of these decisions have widespread consequences, as they provide the rationale for many governmental efforts to regulate the risks people face. Here I explore the issues raised by a Bayesian decision framework, focusing particularly on my analyses of worker and consumer behavior.