Aesthetics and the Decision Sciences

Aesthetic appreciation of normative models has hampered the development of an empirical base in the behavioral decision sciences. Two examples from the "biases and heuristics" literature are used to show that even modern descriptive theories tend to focus on normative models. The argument is made that generalizability to operational contexts requires increased emphasis on empirical research occurring in or focusing on realistically complex environments. Three studies are described that illustrate the benefits of such research.