(a) The study of how decision makers (individuals or groups) chose among a set of alternative courses of actions, and (b) the design of efficient procedures that either aid a decision maker's effort or that evaluate his courses of action according to chosen criteria or policies so that a decision logically follows from the
computations. The decision theories respectively arising or underlying these efforts take into consideration the
uncertainty of the situation, the
information available about consequences, the
risks involved, the costs and benefits of each action and the time, resources and preferences a decision maker has at his disposal for making a
decision (
see optimizing ,
satisficing ). (
Krippendorff )
