Many people new to the formal study of decision making inadvertently confuse the concepts of…

Many people
new to the formal study of decision making inadvertently confuse the concepts
of criterion and constraint. Often, this is because a criterion may imply a
constraint, either implicit or explicit, thereby adding to the confusion. For
example, there may be a distance criterion that the decision maker does not
want to travel too far from home. However, there is an implicit constraint that
the alternatives from which he selects must be within a certain distance from
his home. This constraint effectively says that if the distance from home is
greater than a certain amount, then the
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Many people
new to the formal study of decision making inadvertently confuse the concepts
of criterion and constraint. Often, this is because a criterion may imply a
constraint, either implicit or explicit, thereby adding to the confusion. For
example, there may be a distance criterion that the decision maker does not
want to travel too far from home. However, there is an implicit constraint that
the alternatives from which he selects must be within a certain distance from
his home. This constraint effectively says that if the distance from home is
greater than a certain amount, then the alternative is not feasible—or, rather,
the distance to an alternative must be less than or equal to a certain number
(this would be a formal relationship in some models; in the model in this case,
it reduces the search, considering fewer alternatives). This is similar to what
happens in some cases when selecting a university, where schools beyond a
single day’s driving distance would not be considered by most people, and, in
fact, the utility function (criterion value) of distance can start out low
close to home, peak at about 70 miles (about 100 km)—say, the distance between
Atlanta (home) and Athens, Georgia—and sharply drop off thereafter.

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