Decision making: Linking narratives and action

Narrative-Based Decision Theory (NBDT) describes how narrative thinking leads to concrete action. The first premise is that narratives enable the narrator to make sense of the past and present and allow him or her to make plausible forecasts about the future. The second premise is that the narrator can evaluate the desirability of the forecasted future in light of his or her values and preferences. The third premise is that when the forecasted future is undesirable the narrator can create and implement plans of action aimed at ensuring that the future, when it arrives, is more desirable than what was forecasted. Two kinds of decisions bind these three premises into a unified theory: decisions about the desirability of the forecasted future and decisions about a plan’s potential for remedying things when it is decided that the forecasted future is undesirable — in effect, the plan’s desirability. Both kinds of decisions are made using a single mechanism, the discrepancy test. The NBDT viewpoints on the properties of narratives, on the properties of decisions, and on the properties of the decision mechanism are discussed.