A game-theoretic approach to decision making under uncertainty

We discuss the problem of decision making under uncertainty. Here an action choice must be made without knowing the value of all relevant variables. The importance of decision attitude, i.e. optimistic/pessimistic, is emphasized and a unified approach for evaluating alternatives under different attitudes is discussed. We show the connection between decision making under uncertainty and competitive decision making—game theory. We then draw upon a key concept used in game theory, the association of a selection probability with each alternative rather then a decisive selection of an alternative, and apply this idea to decision making under uncertainty. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.