russpoldrack.org: August 2015

I am currently developing a new course on the psychology of decision making that I will teach at Stanford in the Spring Quarter of 2016. I've looked at the various textbooks on this topic and I'm not particularly happy with any of them, so I am rolling my own syllabus and will use readings from the primary literature. I have developed a draft syllabus and would love to get feedback: Are there important topics that I am missing? Different readings that I should consider? Topics I should consider dropping? Please leave comments with your suggestions, or email me at poldrack@gmail.com!

Part 1: What is a decision?

1. Varieties of decision making (overview of course)

Part 2: Normative decision theory: How an optimal system should make decisions

2. axiomatic approach from economics

- TBD reading on expected utility theory

3. Bayesian decision theory

Körding, K. P. (2007). Decision Theory: What “Should” the Nervous System Do? Science, 318(5850), 606–610. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1142998

4. Information accumulation

Smith & Ratcliff, 2004, Psychology and neurobiology of simple decisions. TINS.

Part 3: Psychology: How humans make decisions

5. Anomalies: the ascendence of psychology and behavioral economics

Kahneman, D. (2003). A perspective on judgment and choice. American Psychologist,

58, 697-720

6. Judgment: Anchoring and adjustment

Chapman, G.B. & Johnson, E.J. (2002). Incorporating the irrelevant: Anchors in

judgment of belief and value

7. Heuristics: availability, representativeness

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases.

Science, 185, 1124-1131.

8. Risk and uncertainty: Risk perception, risk attitudes

Slovic, P. (1987). Perception of risk. Science, 236, 280-285

9. Prospect theory

Kahneman, D. & Tversky A. (1984). Choices, values, and frames. American

Psychologist, 39, 341–350.

10. Framing, endowment effects, and applications of prospect theory

Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J.L., & Thaler, R.H. (1991). The endowment effect, loss

aversion, and status quo bias. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5, 193-206.

11. Varieties of utility

Kahneman, Wakker, & Sarin (1997). Back to Bentham: Explorations of experienced utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics.

12. Intertemporal choice and self-control

Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M.L. (1989). Delay of gratification in children. Science, 244, pp. 933-938.

13. Emotion and decision making

Rottenstreich, Y. & Hsee, C.K. (2001). Money, kisses and electric shocks: On the

affective psychology of risk. Psychological Science, 12, 185-190.

14. Social decision making and game theory

TBD

Part 4: Neuroscience of decision making

15. Neuroscience of simple decisions

Sugrue, Corrado, & Newsome (2005). Choosing the greater of two goods: neural currencies for valuation and decision making. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

16. Neuroscience of Value-based decision making

Rangel et al., 2008, A framework for studying the neurobiology of value-based decision making

17. Reinforcement learning and dopamine, wanting/liking

Schultz, Montague, and Dayan (1997) A neural substrate of prediction and reward

18. Decision making in simple organisms

Reading TBD (c. elegans, snails, slime mold, etc)

possibilities:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10737805

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5767/1613.full

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/278/1703/307

Part 5: Ethical issues

19. Free will