Stevens,J.R.

Evolutionary and psychological approaches to decision making remain largely separate endeavors. Each offers necessary techniques and perspectives which, when integrated, will aid the study of decision making in both humans and nonhuman animals. The evolutionary focus on selection pressures highlights the goals of decisions and the con- ditions under which different selection processes likely influence decision making. An evolutionary view also suggests that fully rational decision processes do not likely exist in nature. The psychological view proposes that cognition is hierarchically built on low- er-level processes. Evolutionary approaches to decision making have not considered the cognitive building blocks necessary to implement decision strategies, thereby mak- ing most evolutionary models of behavior psychologically implausible. The synthesis of evolutionary and psychological constraints will generate more plausible models of decision making. Introduction

Stevens, J. R. (2008). The evolutionary biology of decision making. In C. Engel & W. Singer (Eds.), Better than conscious? Decision making, the human mind, and implications for institutions (pp. 285-304). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (Full text)

Publication year	2008
Document type:	In book
Publication status:	Published
External URL:	http://cognet.mit.edu/library/books/mitpress/0262195801/cache/chap13.pdf View
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