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We review theories of preferential decision making and apply them to explain and predict the choices made by experienced individuals. Specifically, we focus on decision problems for which the actor already has a potential solution or routine available. We start with a brief overview of research evidencing the manifold ways in which such routines can influence the decision-making process. We then develop a classification of decision theories and examine their explanatory power, that is, the extent to which they can give post hoc explanations for routine effects. Finally, we narrow the analysis down to those theories that explicitly address routinized decision making and examine to what extent they are able to make a-priori predictions of routinized decision making. The review reveals that the arsenal of theories as a whole possesses a high potential to derive post-hoc explanations of routine effects with the help of some auxiliary assumptions. However, there are only a few decision theories that explicitly incorporate the influence of routines on choice. Examination of their predictive power reveals that we currently are not able to precisely predict information search, evaluation and context influences on choice in routinized decision making.

Two kinds of strategies can be distinguished by which people can arrive at a frequency estimate: online strategies and memory-based strategies. Online strategies are based on a frequency record, which is formed during encoding. Subsequent frequency judgements can be directly based on this record. In contrast, when people use memory-based strategies, they base their estimate on a memory sample drawn at the time of judgement. The Strategy Application Model predicts under which conditions online strategies and memory-based strategies are used. This chapter describes an experiment in which one of the key assumptions of the Strategy Application Model is tested regarding the role of cognitive effort on the selection of judgement strategies.