Utility Theory

This book is the second edition of Behavioral Decision Theory, published in 2014. The main approach and structure of this book have been retained in the new edition. However, this second edition provides a fresh overview of the idea of behavioral decision theory and related research findings such as theoretical and empirical discoveries of preference formation, time discounting, social interaction, and social decision making.

This book aims to provide threshold models to help physicians to make optimal diagnostic, therapeutic and predictive decisions. Readers will not only find theoretical information but also practical examples illustrating how these decisions should be made.

This book provides an overview of behavioral decision theory and related research findings. In brief, behavioral decision theory is a general term for descriptive theories to explain the psychological knowledge related to decision-making behavior. It is called a theory, but actually it is a combination of various psychological theories, for which axiomatic systems, such as the utility theory widely used in economics, have not been established; it is often limited to qualitative knowledge.