A Markov Decision Process with Awareness and Present Bias in Decision-Making

We propose a Markov Decision Process Model that blends ideas from Psychological research and Economics to study decision-making in individuals with self-control problems. We have borrowed a dual-process of decision-making with self-awareness from Psychological research, and we introduce present bias...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Federico Bizzarri, Chiara Mocenni, Silvia Tiezzi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-06-01
Series:Mathematics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/11/11/2588
Description
Summary:We propose a Markov Decision Process Model that blends ideas from Psychological research and Economics to study decision-making in individuals with self-control problems. We have borrowed a dual-process of decision-making with self-awareness from Psychological research, and we introduce present bias in inter-temporal preferences, a phenomenon widely explored in Economics. We allow for both an exogenous and endogenous, state-dependent, present bias in inter-temporal decision-making and explore, by means of numerical simulations, the consequences on well-being emerging from the solution of the model. We show that, over time, self-awareness may mitigate present bias and suboptimal choice behaviour.
ISSN:2227-7390