Adaptive Decision Making
Published on 11. August 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
482 pages
978-1-63651-594-6 (ISBN)
Description
Adaptive Decision Making by James R. Bettman explores how individuals and consumers adjust their decision-making strategies based on context, complexity, and evolving goals. Unlike static models of behavior, this book emphasizes flexibility-how people shift between intuitive shortcuts and analytical thinking depending on the situation.
Drawing from decades of behavioral and cognitive research, Bettman delves into topics such as dynamic preferences, decision strategies under time pressure, and how feedback influences future choices. He also investigates the role of motivation, learning, and uncertainty in shaping consumer behavior across diverse environments.
This book is essential reading for professionals in marketing, behavioral economics, and design who aim to understand how real-world decisions deviate from idealized models. With clear explanations and empirical foundations, Bettman presents a practical framework for interpreting decision-making as a fluid and adaptive process.
Part of the Legend in Consumer Behavior series, this book captures the evolution of decision science and offers powerful insights for anyone seeking to influence or predict behavior in an ever-changing marketplace.
More details
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
692 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-63651-594-6 (9781636515946)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
James R. Bettman is Burlington Industries Professor and a member of the Marketing Faculty at the Fuqua School of Business and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. He received his BA (mathematics-economics) and PhD (administrative sciences) from Yale University. Prior to joining Duke, he was on the faculty at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His research focuses on consumer information processing and decision-making, particularly constructive preferences, how decision-makers adapt, eff ects of emotion, the role of nonconscious processes, and how people build identities using consumption. His publications include two books, An Information Processing Th eory of Consumer Choice and Th e Adaptive Decision Maker, a monograph, "Emotional Decisions: Tradeoff Diffi culty and Coping in Consumer Choice", and over 120 research papers in marketing, consumer research, psychology, management, and neuroscience. He is on the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) and Journal of Consumer Psychology editorial boards, is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Marketing Research, and has been a co-editor for JCR. Bettman has been recognized for PhD mentorship throughout his career, receiving Duke's Award for Excellence in Mentoring. He has chaired or co-chaired forty PhD committees. Professor Bettman is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Association for Consumer Research, and the American Marketing Association, and a past president of the Association for Consumer Research. He has received the Converse Award, the AMA/Irwin/McGraw-Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator Award, Consumer Behavior Special Interest Group Lifetime Achievement Award, Harold Maynard Award, Paul Green Award, and William O'Dell Award from the American Marketing Association; a Career Contribution Award from the Society for Consumer Psychology; a Distinguished Service Award and an Outstanding Reviewer Award from the Journal of Consumer Research; and was awarded the Leo Melamed Prize for outstanding scholarship. He also received teaching awards at both UCLA and Duke. In addition to research and mentoring PhD students, Professor Bettman's loves are his wife Joan, his son David, dark chocolate, and rock and roll (ranging from the music of the 1950s to often obscure current alternative bands).