Carnegie Mellon University
Decision Science

Decision Science

Selected Recent Publications

If the paper is not directly available, please contact the authors for a PDF copy. Author email addresses can be found on the About Us page.

Argo, N. (2009). Why fight? Examining self-interested vs. communally-oriented motivations in Palestinian rebellion, Security Studies, v.18: 651-680.  This survey in one of the most rebellious refugee camps of the Palestinian West Bank showed that collective orientation (thinking on behalf of the group) was associated with high-risk and high-sacrifice defense activities, while individual orientations (self-interest) were not.

Broomell, S. B., & Bhatia, S. (2014). Parameter recovery for decision modeling using choice data. Decision, 1(4), 252-274. We introduce a general framework to predict how decision sets used in decision-making / experiments impact the quality of parameter estimates. 

Broomell, S. B., & Budescu, D. V. (2009). Why are experts correlated? Decomposing correlations between judges. Psychometrika, 74(3), 531-553. We derive an analytic model of the inter-judge correlation as a function of five underlying parameters.

Broomell, S. B., Budescu, D. V., & Por, H. H. (2011). Pair-wise comparisons of multiple models. Judgment and Decision Making, 6(8), 821-831. We propose the use of pair-wise comparisons of models to produce more informative and targeted comparisons of their performance, and we illustrate this procedure with data from two recently published papers.

Canfield, C., Fischhoff, B., Davis, A. (2016). Quantifying phishing susceptibility for detection and behavior decisions. Human Factors, in press. Used signal detection theory to understand phishing susceptibility. Phishing-related decisions are sensitive to individuals’ detection ability, response bias, confidence, and perception of consequences.

 

Fischhoff, B. (2015). The realities of risk-cost-benefit analysis. Science, 350(6260), 527. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa6516. Reviews the roles of scientific and ethical judgments in formal analyses.

Fischhoff, B. (2008). Assessing adolescent decision-making competence. Developmental Review, 28(1), 12-28. A summary of research on adolescent decision making, from a decision science perspective.

Fischhoff, B. (1992). Giving advice: Decision theory perspectives on sexual assault. American Psychologist, 47, 577-588. Uses the challenge of providing responsible advice regarding sexual assault to illustrate the decision science approach to difficult choices.

Ginges, J., Sheikh, H., Atran, S., and Argo, N.  (2016). “Thinking from God’s perspective decreases biased evaluation of the life of a non-believer.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, v.113 (2), pp. 316-319. We evaluate the possibility that beliefs about God can mitigate bias against other groups and reduce barriers to peace.

Glasgo, B., Azevedo, I.L., Hendrickson, C., (2016). How much electricity can we save by using direct current circuits in homes? Understanding the potential for electricity savings and assessing feasibility of a transition towards DC powered buildings, accepted in Applied Energy. We assess the technical and economic feasibility of DC circuits using data for 120 traditionally-wired AC homes in Austin, Texas to understand the effect of highly variable demand profiles on DC-powered residences.

Horner, N., Azevedo, I.L., (2016). Power usage effectiveness in data centers: overloaded and underachieving, the Electricity Journal, 29, 61-69. We suggest that the “power usage and effectiveness” metric is incomplete, failing to address hardware efficiency, energy productivity, and environmental performance. 

Horner, N., Shehabi, A., Azevedo, I.L. (2016). Known unknowns: indirect energy effects of information and communication technology, accepted in Environmental Research Letters. This review suggests several guidelines for improving research quality in the area of information and communication technology.

Krishnamurti, T., Eggers, S.L., & Fischhoff, B. (2008). The Impact of OTC Availability of Plan B on Teens’ Contraceptive Decision Making. Social Science and Medicine, 67, 618-627. This work examines whether younger high-risk adolescent females could adequately self-select and self-medicate if FDA assigned the emergency contraceptive, "Plan B," over-the-counter status.

Krishnamurti, T., & Loewenstein, G. (2012) Sexual liking and sexual wanting scales: Psychometric properties. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 467-76. Inspired by research showing that wanting (one's motivation to engage in an activity) often diverges from liking (one's enjoyment of the activity), this article details the development and validation of a new measure to examine the distinction between wanting and liking within a sexual relationship.

Long, L., Branstetter, L., Azevedo, I.L., (2016). China’s wind electricity and cost of carbon mitigation are more expensive than anticipated, accepted in Environmental Research Letters. Using data from the Clean Mechanism Development project database between 2004 and 2012, this study shows that while China made progress in bringing down the levelized cost of wind electricity and cost of carbon mitigation, costs are still higher than expected.

Sergi, B., Parker, R., & Zuckerman, B. (2014). Support for International Collaboration in Research: The Role of the Overseas Offices of Basic Science Funders. Review of Policy Research, 31(5), 430-453. http://doi.org/10.1111/ropr.12088 This paper evaluates the use of "overseas" offices by leading basic science funding agencies (e.g. the National Science Foundation) as a policy tool for facilitating international scientific collaboration and partnerships.

Wong-Parodi, G., Krishnamurti, T., Davis, A., Schwartz, D., & Fischhoff, B. (2016). Integrating social science in climate and energy solutions: A decision science approach. Nature Climate Change, 6, 563569. We discuss how to apply behavior and decision research to climate issues.