Unravelling Incoherence in Decision Making

This chapter reconsiders some of the most widely cited phenomena in decision-making research–such as the disjunction and framing effects–through a psychorhetorical perspective. The disjunction effect, classically interpreted as a violation of Savage’s sure-thing principle under conditions of uncertainty, is shown instead to stem from the introduction of non-relevant goals in task formulations, as revealed by pragmatic analyses of the Gamble and Hawaii problems. Similarly, the framing effect, particularly in medical decision paradigms, is reviewed with attention to methodological limitations and inconsistent findings, underscoring how variations in problem formulation influence outcomes. The robustness of framing phenomena in loss–gain scenarios is acknowledged, yet the analysis demonstrates that communicative framing remains central to shaping the representation of decision tasks. Overall, the chapter situates incoherence in decision making within the interpretative dynamics of context, goals, and language.