Choice and value: the biology of decision making

Economics and evolutionary biologists often deal with similar behavioural issues, including the construction of preferences, the relation between normative and descriptive accounts, the significance of violations of normative predictions, and biases for or against uncertainty and risk, to name just a few.  The structure of their research programs, however, differs substantially, and this is particularly salient regarding the justification for normative hypotheses and for the role of optimality. I will address some of these differences, drawing on examples from our experimental behavioural work on decision making across different species, ranging from plants to insects, fish, birds, and mammals. A common thread is the use of violations of optimality predictions to enrich and refine normative (evolutionary) analyses.
 

The DEC organizes a monthly colloquium with guests from all over the world.
2022 program