Renato Frey: "Decision making in a world full of risk and uncertainty: From the lab to real life with an integrated modeling framework"

Professor Renato Frey, University of Zurich, Switzerland:

"Decision making in a world full of risk and uncertainty: From the lab to real life with an integrated modeling framework"

Abstract
One of the key goals of the behavioral sciences has been to model how people make decisions under risk and uncertainty, to thus understand and predict consequential real-life behaviors and, if necessary, help people make better choices through pre- and interventions. In this overview talk, I will argue that previous research with this goal might have been limited by adopting (1) a strong focus on measuring and modeling stable interindividual differences in people's risk preferences rather than modeling dynamic psychological mechanisms, and (2) primarily conducting behavioral research in the lab as opposed to in real-life settings. I will illustrate our ongoing efforts to overcome these hurdles, such as mapping the current "ecology of risk", developing a taxonomy of state-specific psychological mechanism, and deploying ecological momentary assessments paired with large language modeling.