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ABSTRACTThe dual problem of work tour scheduling and task assignment involving workers who differ in their times of availability and task qualifications is examined in this paper. The problem is presented in the context of a fast food restaurant, but applies equally well to a diverse set of service operations. Developing a week‐long labor schedule is a nontrivial problem, in terms of complexity and importance, which a manager spends as much as a full workday solving.The primary scheduling objective (the manager's concern) is the minimization of overstaffing in the face of significant hourly and daily fluctuations in minimum staffing requirements. The secondary objective (the workers' concern) is the minimization of the sum of the squared differences between the number of work hours scheduled and the number targeted for each employee. Contributing to scheduling complexity are constraints on the structure of work tours, including minimum and maximum shift lengths and a maximum number of workdays.A goal programming formulation of a representative problem is shown to be too large, for all practical purposes, to be solved optimally. Existing heuristic procedures related to this research possess inherent limitations which render them inadequate for our purposes. Subsequently, we propose and demonstrate a computerized heuristic procedure capable of producing a labor schedule requiring at most minor refinement by a manager.

In the present study it was shown that both decision heuristics and social value orientation play important roles in the building of preferences. This was revealed in decision tasks in which participants were deciding about candidates for a job position. An eye-tracking equipment was applied in order to register participants' information acquisition. It was revealed that participants performing well on a series of heuristics tasks (availability, representativeness, anchoríng & adjustment, and attribution) including a confidence judgment also behaved more accurately than low performers in the fulfillment of the preference tasks. It was also established that the high performers were not as influenced by whether uncertainty was presented in terms of probabilities or in terms of frequencies as was the low performers. With regard to social value orientation the results revealed that decision processing differences were more systematic between cooperators and competitors than between cooperators and individualists. Also, the cooperators did not seem to attend more to proenvironmental goals than to profit goals in the evaluation of the candidates. Finally, it was shown that accountable cooperators invested more time in their decisions than those that were not accountable, and that no such difference was observed between accountable and not accountable competitors or individualists.

This paper develops a theory that explains why financial crises follow profitable lending booms. When agents exhibit the "availability heuristic" and there is a long period of banking profitability, all agents—banks, their investors, and regulators—end up in an "availability cascade," overestimating bankers' risk-management skills and underestimating the probability that observed outcomes are due to good luck. Consequently, banks profitably invest in riskier assets. Subsequently, if a public signal reveals that outcomes are luck-driven, investors withdraw funds, liquidity evaporates, and a crisis ensues. A loan resale market improves liquidity but increases the probability of a crisis.

This paper presents experimental evidence that non-experts do not distinguish between macroeconomically relevant and irrelevant events in the way economic theory would suggest. Students were asked to predict the likely consequences of several events in fictitious newspaper reports on GDP, inflation, unemployment, and aggregate sales. They overestimate the effects of irrelevant events, especially if those events are easy to imagine. The magnitudes of the predicted effects are clearly related to the concreteness of the events. The results are compatible with the use of the availability heuristic in the process of forming economic expectations. [Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V.]

Direct experiences, we find, influence environmental risk beliefs more than the indirect experiences derived from outcomes to others. This disparity could have a rational basis. Or it could be based on behavioral proclivities in accord with the well‐established availability heuristic or the vested‐interest heuristic, which we introduce in this article. Using original data from a large, nationally representative sample, this article examines the perception of, and responses to, morbidity risks from tap water. Direct experiences have a stronger and more consistent effect on different measures of risk belief. Direct experiences also boost the precautionary response of drinking bottled water and drinking filtered water, while indirect experiences do not. These results are consistent with the hypothesized neglect of indirect experiences in other risk contexts, such as climate change.

It is broadly assumed that political elites (e.g. party leaders) regularly rely on heuristics in their judgments or decision-making. In this article, I aim to bring together and discuss the scattered literature on this topic. To address the current conceptual unclarity, I discuss two traditions on heuristics: (1) the heuristics and biases (H&B) tradition pioneered by Kahneman and Tversky and (2) the fast and frugal heuristics (F&F) tradition pioneered by Gigerenzer et al. I propose to concentrate on two well-defined heuristics from the H&B tradition—availability and representativeness—to empirically assess when political elites rely on heuristics and thereby understand better their judgments and decisions. My review of existing studies supports the notion that political elites use the availability heuristic and possibly the representativeness one for making complex decisions under uncertainty. It also reveals that besides this, we still know relatively little about when political elites use which heuristic and with what effect(s). Therefore, I end by proposing an agenda for future research.

Social workers are constantly seeking useful data regarding methods of behavior change. Changes in self-concept can mediate changes in overt behavior. Self-concept has been reawakened as a focus of empirical research. Several literatures (self-perception theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and the availability heuristic literature) suggest ways of changing the self-concept. This article reviews existing literature and discusses the guidelines for changing self-concept that derive from empirical research in the previously mentioned literatures. The manner in which these guidelines explain the success of particular intervention techniques is delineated. Suggestions for new social work practice interventions are proffered, as are examples from the authors'practice experience.

It is broadly assumed that political elites (e.g. party leaders) regularly rely on heuristics in their judgments or decision-making. In this article, I aim to bring together and discuss the scattered literature on this topic. To address the current conceptual unclarity, I discuss two traditions on heuristics: (1) the heuristics and biases (H&B) tradition pioneered by Kahneman and Tversky and (2) the fast and frugal heuristics (F&F) tradition pioneered by Gigerenzer et al. I propose to concentrate on two well-defined heuristics from the H&B tradition— availability and representativeness—to empirically assess when political elites rely on heuristics and thereby understand better their judgments and decisions. My review of existing studies supports the notion that political elites use the availability heuristic and possibly the representativeness one for making complex decisions under uncertainty. It also reveals that besides this, we still know relatively little about when political elites use which heuristic and with what effect(s). Therefore, I end by proposing an agenda for future research.

By combining a theory of herding behavior with the phenomenon of availability heuristic, this paper shows that non-informative advertisements can affect people's choices by influencing their perception of product quality. We present a model in which people can learn about product quality by observing the choices of others. Consumers are, however, not able to fully distinguish between the observations of real people and fictitious characters in advertisements. Even if a person is aware of this limitation and updates his beliefs accordingly, it is still rational for him to choose the product he has observed most often. In equilibrium the most observed product is always most likely to be of the highest quality. The analysis has important policy implications.

There is a growing trend of information sharing within modern supply chains. This trend is mainly stimulated by recent developments in information technology and the increasing awareness that accurate and timely information helps firms cope with volatile and uncertain business conditions. We model a periodic-review, single-item, capacitated stochastic inventory system, where a supply chain member has the ability to obtain advance capacity information ('ACI') about future supply capacity availability. ACI is used to reduce the uncertainty of future supply and thus enables the decision-maker to make better ordering decisions. We develop an easily applicable heuristic based on insights gained from an analysis of the optimal policy. In a numerical study we quantify the benefits of ACI and compare the performance of the proposed heuristic with the optimal performance. We illustrate the conditions in which the procedure is working well and comment on its practical applicability. ; V sodobnih oskrbnih verigah je v zadnjih dveh desetletjih močno prisoten trend izmenjave informacij, ki omogočajo izboljša­nje poslovanja posameznih podjetij, kot tudi celotne oskrbne verige. S pomočjo natančnih in pravočasnih informacij, katerih prenos je z nedavnim razvojem informacijskih tehnologij močno olajšan, se podjetja uspešno spopadajo s spremenljivimi in negotovimi pogoji poslovanja. V članku predstavimo model uravnavanja zalog s periodičnim spremljanjem zalog v pogojih nee­nakomernega stohastičnega povpraševanja z omejeno zmogljivostjo oskrbe, kjer ima člen oskrbne verige dostop do informa­cije o razpoložljivosti oskrbe. Informacija o razpoložljivosti oskrbe zmanjša negotovost prihodnje oskrbe in omogoči managerju učinkovitejše naročanje. Na podlagi glavnih vpogledov pridobljenih z analizo optimalne politike naročanja razvijemo praktično uporabno hevristično metodo. Z numerično analizo določimo vrednost informacije o razpoložljivosti oskrbe in prepoznamo scenarije, kjer je ta največja. Ob tem na podlagi primerjave med rezultati optimalne politike naročanja in predlagane hevristike izmerimo natančnost le-te in podamo pogoje, ki morajo biti izpolnjeni, da hevristika doseže želeno natančnost.

Increasing the perception of legal risk via publicized litigation and lobbying for copyright law enforcement has had limited success in reducing unlawful content sharing by the public. We consider the extent to which engaging in file sharing online is motivated by the perceived benefits of this activity as opposed to perceived legal risks. Moreover, we explore moderators of the relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefits; namely, trust in industry and legal regulators, and perceived online anonymity. We examine these questions via a large two‐part survey of consumers of music (n = 658) and eBooks (n = 737). We find that perceptions of benefit, but not of legal risk, predict stated file‐sharing behavior. An affect heuristic is employed: as perceived benefit increases, perceived risk falls. This relationship is increased under high regulator and industry trust (which actually increases perceived risk in this study) and low anonymity (which also increases perceived risk). We propose that, given the limited impact of perceived legal risk upon unlawful downloading, it would be better for the media industries to target enhancing the perceived benefit and availability of lawful alternatives.

In most Western economies, the flourishing of the Welfare State has coincided with a decline of the role of the family: divorce has been introduced, and the number of marriages has decreased. We suggest that a taboo against divorce was part of the informal safety net in a period when social protection was provided by the family. Once the State started offering suitable alternatives, the taboo was no longer expedient, and was dropped. For the same reasons, marriage has become less popular. We further notice that divorce is an extremely costly process, and once allowed it may act as an independent reason for the reduction of the number of marriages. This latter result is especially evident under the assumption that agents subjectively evaluate the probability of facing a divorce using an availability heuristic.

Do the cognitive biases established in WEIRD populations also exist in other populations? We test the implications of dual‐process theory by varying experimental scenarios between those hypothesized to produce different levels of emotional response within a developing‐country context. We hypothesize that respondents in an African setting will exhibit rational responses to questions about disease and corruption as these are relatively normalized parts of life, but they may be subject to framing biases under emotionally provocative events like terrorist events. In a series of field experiments conducted in Côte d'Ivoire, we find that respondents exhibit responses that are consistent with the expectations of the rational‐choice model. However, when evaluating a question about terrorism, responses deviate from rationality and do so most significantly in Grand Bassam where a major attack occurred, consistent with the predictions of the availability heuristic.

Abstract
In the present research, we examined fan entitlement among members of the furry fandom – a group of people with a shared interest in media and activities that feature anthropomorphic animals (animals given human-like features). We surveyed both fans and content creators in the fandom, which allowed us to test several predictors of fan entitlement (e.g., stigmatization, age) and the relationship between fan entitlement and perceptions of fan entitlement among artists. The results are then contextualized within well-known psychological processes (e.g., the availability heuristic), laying the groundwork for future research on the processes underlying fan entitlement and its effects. Implications of the results are discussed for three different bodies of research: research on the furry fandom specifically, research on fan entitlement more broadly, and research on fan/creator relationships in general.

AbstractEvolutionary explanations for behavioral findings are often both fascinating and plausible. But even so, they do not establish that people are acting rationally, that they are not making mistakes, or that their decisions are promoting their welfare. For example, present bias, optimistic overconfidence, and use of the availability heuristic can produce terrible mistakes and serious welfare losses, and this is so even if they have evolutionary foundations. There might well be evolutionary explanations for certain kinds of in-group favoritism, and also for certain male attitudes and actions toward women, and also for human mistreatment of and cruelty toward nonhuman animals. But those explanations would not justify anything at all. It is not clear that in Darwinia (a nation in which departures from perfect rationality have an evolutionary explanation), policymakers should behave very differently from Durkheimian policymakers (a nation in which departures from perfect rationality have a cultural explanation).