Neuroeconomics – Investigating the biological basis of human decision making

Purpose: Different scientific disciplines, ranging from cognitive neuroscience and psychology to economics investigate individual decision making from their perspective and with their methodology. Within the new field of Neuroeconomics these different approaches try to find a common vocabulary and theories to better understand human behaviour. The homo oeconomicus as neoclassical model of the rationally deciding and universally informed human who always carries the maximization of his utility in mind dominated – and in part still dominates – economic research and theories. This view of human decision making has received a lot of critique during recent years and even decades – not the least through behavioural and experimental work. Phenomena like loss aversion (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) or reciprocity (Fehr and Schmidt, 1999 or Falk and Fischbacher, 2006) show, that contextual information and social preferences play an important role in human decision making. Within the field of neuroeconomics, different disciplines ranging from cognitive neuroscience and psychology to economics try to consolidate approaches and methods of different disciplines to enhance the understanding of individual decision making processes.

Conclusion: A more detailed understanding of the biological basis (and determinants) of human behaviour will lead to new and hopefully better models of human decisions and ultimately better predictors of future behaviour.