Departures from optimality when pursuing multiple approach or avoidance goals.
用动态规划模型定义最优性，基于前景理论预测人们在追求趋近目标时更保守、追求回避目标时更冒险，并通过实验验证了这些偏离最优性的行为。
This article examines how people depart from optimality during multiple-goal pursuit. The authors operationalized optimality using dynamic programming, which is a mathematical model used to calculate expected value in multistage decisions. Drawing on prospect theory, they predicted that people are risk-averse when pursuing approach goals and are therefore more likely to prioritize the goal in the best position than the dynamic programming model suggests is optimal. The authors predicted that people are risk-seeking when pursuing avoidance goals and are therefore more likely to prioritize the goal in the worst position than is optimal. These predictions were supported by results from an experimental paradigm in which participants made a series of prioritization decisions while pursuing either 2 approach or 2 avoidance goals. This research demonstrates the usefulness of using decision-making theories and normative models to understand multiple-goal pursuit. (PsycINFO Database Record