The theory of expected Utility by J. Von Neumann and O. Morgenstern

Conclusions
The brief description of the most important psychological causes of Expected
Utility Theory violation concludes the thesis. It was mainly focused on presenting
the roots of the Expected Utility Hypothesis (St. Petersburg Paradox and
Pascal’s Wager) and most important and well known notions associated with it
(Von Neumann–Morgenstern Expected Utility Theory and Allais Paradox).
Several reasons for such a structure of the thesis can be found. First and
foremost, the topic of Expected Utility Hypothesis is extremely broad - ranging
from St. Petersburg Paradox discovered over three hundred years ago to a fairly
new Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT) developed in 1992 by Amos Tversky
and Daniel Kahneman. Hence, the scope of this work must have been limited in
order to avoid potential superficial treatment of the subject. It was decided to
focus on the early development of the theory and its most recognised critique
due to a very important characteristic of the literature concerning the problem.
During the research and literature overview performed prior to writing this thesis,
it was found that despite the wide range of available English literature on the
topic, it is characterised by high complexity and is mainly directed to highly
specialised researchers and scientists in this field (e.g. (Schoemaker, 1980),
(Hagen and Wenstop, 1984), (Krelle, 1984)). Substantial majority of the articles
and books found, assumed that the reader is absolutely familiar with all the
concepts mentioned in this thesis. Furthermore, no scientific publication was
found concerning the basics of the subject or covering most of the problems
included in the thesis in a single work. Moreover, the first publications of the
notions mentioned in this work were usually a bit archaic or consisted of complex
and meticulous mathematical considerations. Therefore, it was considered a
worthy challenge to gather, analyse, synthesise and systematise the selected
literature on the subject in such a way to present a comprehensive, thorough and
accessible to a less experienced or knowledgeable readers in this field a worth
reading material. Such a task required introduction of some elementary
mathematical notions, however, it was limited only to the essential ones in order
to preserve the economic perspective of the thesis.