Journals

Theories of Decision Making The Rational Comprehensive Model The rational comprehensive model is based on the reasoning of economists, mathematicians, and psychologists. It assumes that the decisionmaker can identify the problem, that the decisionmaker’s goals, values, and objectives are clear and ranked in accord with their importance, that alternative ways of addressing the problem are considered, that the cost and benefits or advantages and disadvantages of each alternative are investigated, that alternatives and their consequences can be compared with other alternatives, and that the decisionmaker will choose the alternative that maximizes the attainment of his or her goals, values, and objectives. However, problems are not always clearly defined; problems have to be formulated in a way which enables people to make decisions about them. Decisionmakers must have vast amounts of information in order to make use of the rational comprehensive decision-making technique. There needs to be an ability to predict the future consequences of decisions made. Also, problems confronting decisionmakers often embody conflicting values. In addition, it is tough to ignore the sunk costs of former decisions, these may foreclose many alternatives. Moreover, this model of decisionmaking assumes that there is one (unitary) decisionmaker, when in fact a great many people, interests and institutions are usually involved. The Incremental Theory Attempts to correct deficiencies of the rational comprehensive model and to better describe how policy decisionmakers actually behave have resulted in incremental theory. Incremental theory holds that the selection of goals and objectives is intertwined with, not distinct from, the scientific analysis of the problem. Decision makers only consider alternatives for dealing with a problem that differs marginally (incrementally) from existing policies (suggesting that they do not completely remake policy every time they make a policy decision, but