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Solid economic information and rational choices may have little to do with booms and busts in the current stock market. Investors make decisions based on hunches, gossip, fads, emotions and other noneconomic news.

Today's marketing researchers want to get into the individual consumer's head, so that companies can aim their products at more specific segments of the population. Examines the use of psychographics--Madison Avenue's attempts to classify consumers by their beliefs, motivations, and attitudes.

Every year millions of managers attend in-house or off-site workshops on such topics as leadership, decision-making and interpersonal communications, in order to improve performance on the job. Discusses how the companies that pay for the training rarely try to find out if any improvement does in fact occur.