We make decisions every day. Yet we are sometimes perplexed by these
decisions and the decisions of others. To complicate things further, we
live in an age where there are more things to choose from than ever
before - the Internet is transforming our choices and making us more
accountable for them: what we choose is recorded, modelled and used to
predict our future behaviour.
So are we in a position to make better choices today than we were a
decade ago? Certainly there are some who believe so. Psychologists claim
we are subject to hidden mental processes that lead us to one thing
rather than another; economists offer predictions about what people will
buy; and some philosophers claim that our choices echo our evolutionary
past.
Are these claims merited? Do they reflect the beginnings of a new
science of choice? This book offers a critical overview of these and
other claims, showing where they are justified and where they are
exaggerated. It will be an essential reference for anyone interested in
whether science can help us to understand both the ways people make
choices in their everyday lives and how these may be changing.
