People make terrible mistakes all the time. We marry the wrong person, governments take misguided military action, corporations spend vast resources on inferior or unwanted products, we go too deep into debt to consume goods and services, we mis-judge risks, we mis-calculate probabilities—and we often pay for it dearly. Human welfare has greatly suffered through poor decisions; and differences in general aptitude for judgment and decision-making can stratify societies and lead to economic and social inequalities.
Judgment is defined as the ability to make evaluations, determine relationships, and draw conclusions about the world. Throughout life, humans need to be able to make decisions with sound judgment about a range of topics in order to operate as a social being. Decision making is the process by which someone will choose between multiple alternatives. These two things tie in together: often, bad judgment can lead to bad decisions, which can lead to poor outcomes.
Being able to make good judgments and decisions has been an increasing focus in the fields of psychology and economics. Over the past decades, scholars in the field of judgment and decision making (JDM) have amassed a trove of findings, theories, and prescriptions regarding the processes ordinary people enact when making choices.
This body of knowledge, however, has had little influence on sociology—and sociology has had little impact on JDM scholarship as well. Sociological research on choice emphasizes how features of the social environment shape individual outcomes, but typically not people’s underlying choices or decision processes that may lead to those outcomes.
Judgment is defined as the ability to make evaluations, determine relationships, and draw conclusions about the world. Throughout life, humans need to be able to make decisions with sound judgment about a range of topics in order to operate as a social being. Decision making is the process by which someone will choose between multiple alternatives. These two things tie in together: often, bad judgment can lead to bad decisions, which can lead to poor outcomes.
Being able to make good judgments and decisions has been an increasing focus in the fields of psychology and economics. Over the past decades, scholars in the field of judgment and decision making (JDM) have amassed a trove of findings, theories, and prescriptions regarding the processes ordinary people enact when making choices.
This body of knowledge, however, has had little influence on sociology—and sociology has had little impact on JDM scholarship as well. Sociological research on choice emphasizes how features of the social environment shape individual outcomes, but typically not people’s underlying choices or decision processes that may lead to those outcomes.
- Teacher: Adam Hayes