Inscription

Persons wishing to register for this programme must make their registration online through this website, before 10th November. They should send the following documents by e-mail: i.medrano@lse.ac.uk

Introduction

The first day this Masterclass will focus in how the concepts of 'frames' and 'framing' are receiving increasing attention in a broad range of disciplines including psychology, economics and management. These concepts are particularly relevant for understanding and improving decision making processes: empirical evidence from field and experimental studies consistently show how both frames and framing can covertly influence reasoning and decision quality.

This masterclass will start by distinguishing between cognitive and interactional perspectives on frames and framing. It will then present some principles and a range of tools to help individuals and teams improve the quality of their frames and the effectiveness of their framing. Developed within Decision Sciences, they offer a practical response to the growing need in organisations for developing an effective and efficient decision making capability. Illustrations of how these principles and tools can be applied in practice will be presented during the masterclass, with balanced emphasis on both individual and team decisions.

The second day will build on the content of the first day, and it will provide a self-contained introduction to behavioural economics. It will start by providing an operational definition of behavioural economics, and by briefly describing its main methods and principles. It will then review some of the current applications of behavioural economics to public policy, and critical discuss the implications of behavioural economics for decision-making in the public and private sectors, with a special emphasis on health. It will finally illustrate two key areas where the experimental evidence on actual economic behaviour has suggested to rethink economics through the behavioural lens: social preferences and time preferences.

The third day builds up on the first two days and explores the role of modelling judgments in two types of strategic decisions: those that involve multiple and conflicting objectives and those that are taken under uncertainty. Extensive evidence from behavioural decision research has shown that we adopt sub-optimal strategies for gathering and aggregating information when making unsupported decisions. On the other hand, the development, in Decision Sciences, of Risk and Decision Analysis provides a robust framework to represent and analyse complex strategic decisions and policy options, integrating evidence and judgments. The use of this framework to support decision making helps overcoming cognitive limitations and provides guidance on how to debias judgments from decision makers and experts. And it goes beyond the use of nudges and choice architecture, which are classic in Behavioural Economics, towards helping people to become better decision makers. This masterclass will present these frameworks and illustrate how they can be used in practice, with emphasis on health-related prioritization.