Can We Learn to Make Better Decisions?

Laboratory research on choice anomalies is often based on one-shot decisions where the probabilities are described to the participants. In the real world, people might not initially know the probability of an outcome but often repeat their decisions, allowing learning to occur. This chapter discusses evidence that people can learn to make better decisions. Experiencing events in the world shapes our mental representation of probabilities and helps to explain why people make different decisions when they experience the outcomes compared to when they make one-shot decisions.