A Handbook on Multi-Attribute Decision-Making Methods

1An Overview of the Art of Decision‐making

1.1 Introduction

What motivates one to make a decision? Finding the precise reason behind these motivations might not be as easy as it might seem. Nevertheless, given that these choices are shaping the world around us, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the answer to the aforementioned question may facilitate understanding the workings of many world phenomena. Just for a moment consider the possibility of knowing the motivations prompting person to make decisions. If that were achieved, predicting humans’ behavior from the simple every‐day activity to the most sophisticated social, economic, and political contexts would be possible.

Now let us change the scope of the question; how can one make a good choice? This time we may be more successful in finding a more proper answer. Let us take a moment to consider the description of the act of decision‐making. The Oxford dictionary defines decision‐making as “the process of deciding about something important, especially in a group of people or in an organization.” From a psychological point of view, however, decision‐making is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several alternative possibilities. Each decision‐making process produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt action (Tzeng and Huang 2011). In other words, the decision‐making merely refers to the act choosing among a set of solutions, rather than ...