There are countless decisions that have been made by the Simpsons and the other denizens of Springfield that have resulted in over 350 hilarious adventures. Who can forget the time that Homer purposely gains weight to get on disability (“King-sized Homer”) or drives the monorail (“Marge vs. the Monorail”); when Marge decides to try and ban Itchy & Scratchy (“Itchy & Scratchy & Marge”) or takes a job in the nuclear plant (“Marge gets a Job”); when Bart decides to get Krusty’s autograph on a check (“Bart the Fink”) or Lisa decides to become a vegetarian (“Lisa the Vegetarian”); or even when Maggie decides to disrupt the Ayn Rand School for Tots in an homage to “The Great Escape” (“A Streetcar Named Marge”)? Well, this chapter will not deal with any of these antics. We will not be concentrating on the wacky end results that come from these odd decisions, but instead, looking at the thought processes we believe that all people use and pointing out how they manifest themselves in The Simpsons. As we all know, people are constantly making decisions that we find perplexing. By taking this behavior to its end result, The Simpsons shows some of the common things that people do when making decisions, in addition to providing brilliant satire.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to understanding how people make decisions. The first comes from economics and takes as its basis the idea that people do what they think is in their  …