Exploring the psychology of trade - off decision - making in environmental impact assessment

Dealing with trade-offs lies at the heart of environmental impact assessment (EIA). However, there has been scant reflection to date on the concept of trade-offs within the EIA literature. This paper aims to contribute to the thinking about trade-offs by distilling key learning points from research conducted within the field of psychology. In particular the paper explores three interrelated questions namely: ‘When are trade-off decisions difficult?’; ‘How do we react when faced with difficult trade-off decisions?’ and ‘How can we deal with difficult trade-off decisions?’ The research confirms that EIA functions within a very difficult trade-off decision-making context and that observed behavior related to these difficult decisions can be explained from a psychology perspective. In order to deal better with trade-off decisions it is helpful to be able to predict decision difficulty and anticipate resultant behavior. Moreover, the way we present and frame decisions affect their outcomes.