'In the Western world, freedom is an important value and we tend to see choice as a type of freedom. Yet, choice can make life very complicated for us. We have more options than ever before: we can more or less choose our studies, our careers, and our life partners, but the penalty for making the 'wrong' choice is felt all the more.'

'The courses I teach focus on how people choose, whether they decide in a deliberate manner or more intuitively, and which type of decision-making serves them best considering the occasion. We also look at how people deal with the insecurity about the outcome of their choices and at how people deal with regret. These issues have been at the centre of our research at the UvA for over 30 years. We can boast of one of the world's strongest research groups in this field, and our research naturally spills over into the classes we teach.'

'Decision-making is important in all of the Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics domains, but these different disciplines also have different views of how decisions are made. A judge decides a case in a specifically legal manner, quite different from how lawmakers, consumers or businessmen make their choices. The psychological perspective has more eye for the role of emotions. For example, psychological research has shown that angry judges hand out more severe punishments than sad judges. Decision-making theory is therefore an interesting arena for these different disciplines' views.'

'It's exciting to see what results from the confrontation of these different views. Fresh ideas are born from a multi-disciplinary perspective. This new Bachelor's programme isn't just a mixture of economics, psychology, politics and law: the confrontation between these disciplines creates a broader view of reality.'