Decision making involves tradeoffs. Most decision analysis, including basic texts in economics, makes use of tradeoffs. Many people understand that decisions are experienced as difficult because of the tradeoffs that are required. However, we know relatively little about how people make tradeoffs and biases that may occur due to how people make tradeoffs. This presents an opportunity to develop new descriptive models for understanding how people make tradeoffs and to develop new prescriptive models for guiding people to make better tradeoffs by avoiding or minimizing biases.

An example application relevant to TRI of having better models of how people make tradeoffs can be around the problem of range anxiety of electric vehicles. A better tradeoff model may help understand the underpinnings of range anxiety and provide new solutions, not just around marketing strategies and decision aids but potentially could lead to new designs that provide innovative solutions to the tradeoffs people are making.