Decision-making


In psychology, decision-making is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either rational or irrational. The decision-making process is a reasoning process based on assumptions of values, preferences and beliefs of the decision-maker. Every decision-making process produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt action.
Research about decision-making is also published under the label problem solving, particularly in European psychological research.

Overview

Decision-making can be regarded as a problem-solving activity yielding a solution deemed to be optimal, or at least satisfactory. It is therefore a process which can be more or less rational or irrational and can be based on explicit or tacit knowledge and beliefs. Tacit knowledge is often used to fill the gaps in complex decision-making processes. Usually, both of these types of knowledge, tacit and explicit, are used together in the decision-making process.
Human performance has been the subject of active research from several perspectives:
  • Psychological: examining individual decisions in the context of a set of needs, preferences and values the individual has or seeks.
  • Cognitive: the decision-making process is regarded as a continuous process integrated in the interaction with the environment.
  • Normative: the analysis of individual decisions concerned with the logic of decision-making, or communicative rationality, and the invariant choice it leads to.
A major part of decision-making involves the analysis of a finite set of alternatives described in terms of evaluative criteria. Then the task might be to rank these alternatives in terms of how attractive they are to the decision-maker when all the criteria are considered simultaneously. Another task might be to find the best alternative or to determine the relative total priority of each alternative when all the criteria are considered simultaneously. Solving such problems is the focus of multiple-criteria decision analysis. This area of decision-making, although long established, has attracted the interest of many researchers and practitioners and is still highly debated as there are many MCDA methods which may yield very different results when they are applied to exactly the same data. This leads to the formulation of a decision-making paradox. Logical decision-making is an important part of all science-based professions, where specialists apply their knowledge in a given area to make informed decisions. For example, medical decision-making often involves a diagnosis and the selection of appropriate treatment. But naturalistic decision-making research shows that in situations with higher time pressure, higher stakes, or increased ambiguities, experts may use intuitive decision-making rather than structured approaches. They may follow a recognition-primed decision that fits their experience, and arrive at a course of action without weighing alternatives.
The decision-maker's environment can play a part in the decision-making process. For example, environmental complexity is a factor that influences cognitive function. A complex environment is an environment with a large number of different possible states which come and go over time. Studies done at the University of Colorado have shown that more complex environments correlate with higher cognitive function, which means that a decision can be influenced by the location. One experiment measured complexity in a room by the number of small objects and appliances present; a simple room had less of those things. Cognitive function was greatly affected by the higher measure of environmental complexity, making it easier to think about the situation and make a better decision.

Problem solving vs. decision making

It is important to differentiate between problem solving, or problem analysis, and decision-making. Problem solving is the process of investigating the given information and finding all possible solutions through invention or discovery. Traditionally, it is argued that problem solving is a step towards decision making, so that the information gathered in that process may be used towards decision-making.
; Characteristics of problem-solving:
  • Problems are merely deviations from performance standards.
  • Problems must be precisely identified and described
  • Problems are caused by a change from a distinctive feature
  • Something can always be used to distinguish between what has and has not been affected by a cause
  • Causes of problems can be deduced from relevant changes found in analyzing the problem
  • The most likely cause of a problem is the one that exactly explains all the facts while having the fewest assumptions.
; Characteristics of decision-making:
  • Objectives must first be established
  • Objectives must be classified and placed in order of importance
  • Alternative actions must be developed
  • The alternatives must be evaluated against all the objectives
  • The alternative that is able to achieve all the objectives is the tentative decision
  • The tentative decision is evaluated for more possible consequences
  • Decisive actions are taken, and additional actions are taken to prevent any adverse consequences from becoming problems and starting both systems all over again
  • There are steps that are generally followed that result in a decision model that can be used to determine an optimal production plan
  • In a situation featuring conflict, role-playing may be helpful for predicting decisions to be made by involved parties
  • When participants do not agree on what the future will look like, Decision-making Under Deep Uncertainty may play a role.

    Analysis paralysis

When a group or individual is unable to make it through the problem-solving step on the way to making a decision, they could be experiencing analysis paralysis. Analysis paralysis is the state that a person enters where they are unable to make a decision, in effect paralyzing the outcome. Some of the main causes for analysis paralysis is the overwhelming flood of incoming data or the tendency to overanalyze the situation at hand. There are said to be three different types of analysis paralysis.
  • The first is analysis process paralysis. This type of paralysis is often spoken of as a cyclical process. One is unable to make a decision because they get stuck going over the information again and again for fear of making the wrong decision.
  • The second is decision precision paralysis. This paralysis is cyclical, just like the first one, but instead of going over the same information, the decision-maker will find new questions and information from their analysis and that will lead them to explore into further possibilities rather than making a decision.
  • The third is risk uncertainty paralysis. This paralysis occurs when the decision-maker wants to eliminate any uncertainty but the examination of provided information is unable to get rid of all uncertainty.

    Extinction by instinct

On the opposite side of analysis paralysis is the phenomenon called extinction by instinct. Extinction by instinct is the state that a person is in when they make careless decisions without detailed planning or thorough systematic processes. Extinction by instinct can possibly be fixed by implementing a structural system, like checks and balances into a group or one's life. Analysis paralysis is the exact opposite where a group's schedule could be saturated by too much of a structural checks and balance system.
Groupthink is another occurrence that falls under the idea of extinction by instinct. Groupthink is when members in a group become more involved in the "value of the group higher than anything else"; thus, creating a habit of making decisions quickly and unanimously. In other words, a group stuck in groupthink is participating in the phenomenon of extinction by instinct.

Information overload

Information overload is "a gap between the volume of information and the tools we have to assimilate it". Information used in decision-making is to reduce or eliminate the uncertainty. Excessive information affects problem processing and tasking, which affects decision-making. Psychologist George Armitage Miller suggests that humans' decision making becomes inhibited because human brains can only hold a limited amount of information. Crystal C. Hall and colleagues described an "illusion of knowledge", which means that as individuals encounter too much knowledge, it can interfere with their ability to make rational decisions. Other names for information overload are information anxiety, information explosion, infobesity, and infoxication.

Decision fatigue

is when a sizable amount of decision-making leads to a decline in decision-making skills. People who make decisions in an extended period of time begin to lose mental energy needed to analyze all possible solutions. Impulsive decision-making and decision avoidance are two possible paths that extend from decision fatigue. Impulse decisions are made more often when a person is tired of analysis situations or solutions; the solution they make is to act and not think. Decision avoidance is when a person evades the situation entirely by not ever making a decision. Decision avoidance is different from analysis paralysis because this sensation is about avoiding the situation entirely, while analysis paralysis is continually looking at the decisions to be made but still unable to make a choice.

Post-decision analysis

Evaluation and analysis of past decisions are complementary to decision-making. See also mental accounting and Postmortem documentation.

Neuroscience

Decision-making is a region of intense study in the fields of systems neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience. Several brain structures, including the anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and the overlapping ventromedial prefrontal cortex are believed to be involved in decision-making processes. A neuroimaging study found distinctive patterns of neural activation in these regions depending on whether decisions were made on the basis of perceived personal volition or following directions from someone else. Patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex have difficulty making advantageous decisions.
A common laboratory paradigm for studying neural decision-making is the two-alternative forced choice task, in which a subject has to choose between two alternatives within a certain time. A study of a two-alternative forced choice task involving rhesus monkeys found that neurons in the parietal cortex not only represent the formation of a decision but also signal the degree of certainty associated with the decision. A 2012 study found that rats and humans can optimally accumulate incoming sensory evidence, to make statistically optimal decisions. Another study found that lesions to the ACC in the macaque resulted in impaired decision-making in the long run of reinforcement guided tasks suggesting that the ACC may be involved in evaluating past reinforcement information and guiding future action. It has recently been argued that the development of formal frameworks will allow neuroscientists to study richer and more naturalistic paradigms than simple 2AFC decision tasks; in particular, such decisions may involve planning and information search across temporally extended environments.