Decision Making and Reasoning Essay

There are different types of decisions that we must make as well. From simple choices when planning for a vacation or making more life changing choices that require a detailed, logical analysis concerning what to do. Questions about strategy use have been treated in several different lines of decision-making. Largely, a distinction arises in terms of when and why deliberative processing best describes decision-making behavior. Under novel decision-making conditions, there is no prior experience to guide the decision-making process. The process involves selecting the appropriate strategy. Under repetitive successful decision-making conditions, there is a long history of experience. Some decisions become automatic in the sense that they require no deliberation. In this process, we address the issue of how decision processes transit from more controlled or deliberative strategies, to simple decision rules, and finally to automatic or routine strategies. What one sees as rational behavior in many of the social situations that have been studied is likely to depend on whether one conceives of rationality as enlightened self-interest in a fairly narrow sense, or one factors in the roles of such variables as self-image and conscience, or one allows for the possibility that a rational person might take a genuine interest in the welfare of other people, independently of his or her own. In other words, what is perceived as a dilemma from one perspective may not be a dilemma as perceived from another; a decision problem that is very difficult when assessed relative to one set of values may be very easy when assessed relative to another set. Dilemmas are difficult decision problems, necessitating, as they often do, choices between equally unsatisfactory (or in some cases equally attractive) options. Some social dilemmas pit self-interest against the common good. What constitutes rational behavior in dealing with dilemmas has been a question of interest to many theorists and students of human reasoning. Certain prototypical situations—notably various versions of the prisoner’s dilemma have been intensively studied with the hope of gaining insights into the determinants of competitive and cooperative behavior. However, along the way, we may use simple rules to decide when and where to stop and which specific routes to take, depending on incidental factors such as traffic. It is important to understand how these various decision domains are differently perceived and processed. (Betsch et al, 2004, p1) Strategies That Guide Human Decision Making A strategy is used to refer to processes which are relatively slow, goal-directed, systematic, and under explicit conscious control. However, it is also argued that to reason deductively rather than inductively does require a conscious effort at deduction and only occurs in response to specific instructions. Thus deduction is seen as a strategy. An account of strategic deductive reasoning with the mental models framework is preferred. (D’Ydewalle et al, 2000, p1) The strategic phases of decision making are the generation phase, the evaluation phase, and the learning phase. In a very rough sense, these phases correspond to the periods before, during, and after one makes a decision, respectively. Hence, they can be viewed as three successive points in time, but there is a great deal of recursion that can occur between phases. (Klein et al, 2001, p31) The tendency to implement appropriate behaviors strategies is apparent by the number of techniques available. For example, vigilant problem solving found that most executives report that they engage in one of a number of simplistic strategies for arriving at a solution. These simplistic strategies of simple decision rules are grouped them into cognitive categories. The cognitive decision rules: 1. Unreflectively using a standard operating procedure, 2. Accepting the first alternative that comes to mind that is good enough to meet the minimal requirements (satisfying), 3. Searching ones mind for a well-known analogy that turns out to be inappropriate (analogizing), 4. Consolidating the choice discovered through rules (1) to (3) and bolstering it in one’s mind by focusing mainly on the positive features of the choice, 5. Saving time and effort by getting someone who has looked into the issues to provide a brief description of what one should do and why (the nutshell briefing rule). (Byrnes, 1998, p21) For example in a case study format, Suppose that a student already possesses some automatic but dysfunctional strategies for making the decisions the instructor seeks to have make well. Then, before the training effort can begin in earnest, those â€Å"bad habits† have to be eliminated. This will be a prodigious task because, by their nature, the already established strategies will initiate themselves effortlessly, uncontrollably, and beyond the trainee’s consciousness. Because decision making is such a fundamental human activity, which each of us has practiced day-in and day-out all our lives, perhaps the majority of our decision strategies are automated. This means that it is folly to think that it is even possible to fundamentally change a person’s basic decision-making dispositions. (Klein et al, 2001, p25) Managerial leadership is generally considered a major factor in organizational behavior because of its putative effect on individuals, groups, and organizational outcomes. Some regard leadership as a special case of social influence. But progress has been very slow in understanding why leaders exert influence in certain situations while not in others. Research has not produced particularly robust and reliable findings in this regard.