Heuristics, biases, and decision making

This chapter presents different approaches to the study of judgement and decision making, with a major emphasis on the sport domain. It provides examples of decision problems in sports and exercise. The chapter discusses the conceptual debate between two seemingly contradictory schools of judgement and decision making. The first is the heuristics and biases approach, which is most identified with research conducted by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. The second is the simple heuristic approach to decision making, which has been described within the family of naturalistic decision making approaches, with the most prominent proponent being psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer. The simple heuristics approach describes how people search for information, stop information search, and make choices in situations of uncertainty. It relies on concepts of bounded, ecological and social rationality, and shows that people adapt to their constraints and rely on the structure of the environment.