Behavioral Science—Qualitative Modeling: A Beginning

This issue we do the unusual. At the risk of appearing to endorse a commercially available software product. REVEAL is used to illustrate to breakthrough in policy modeling. REVEAL is a decision support system (DSS) generator which enables a user to extend conventional quantitative modeling analysis. The user describes contingent policies in natural language as an integral part of the model. Periodically, the quantitative modeling results are interpreted through the qualitative policy statement(s). Then as a result quantitative model parameter(s) may be reset to stimulate the desired management policy. Thus the trajectory of the “What if” scenario under scrutiny is controlled by the policy(s) which are presumed to apply.