Almost by definition decision-making is
typical human activity, and therefore importantpsychological subject. The
starting point of its classical conception within psychology could be tracedback
to economy and mathematic, with ideas of human as rational economic being, and
conceptualising decision making as choice between two or more alternatives, and
as such being a separate event in space and time. Already in fifties Herbert
Simon challenged such a view with his concept of bounded rationality, emerging
from the joint effect of internal limitations of the human mind, and the
structure of external environments in which the mind operates. During the last
decades with the shift to the real word situations where decisions are embedded
in larger tasks, becoming so part of the study of action, the lost rational
human appeared again as efficient creature in the complex environment.
Gigerenzer showed how heuristics help in this process.
Decision context does not influence
only the values of choices, but also the values of outcomes, e.g. the amounts
expressed as gains or losses. If choices are framed in such a way
that reference point is low on the scale of values, the gain
will be greater in comparison with
high positioned reference point. Fifty Euros is a lot for
poor and a little for rich. Framing effect contradict the invariance axiom of
the utility theory, which demands that wording should not influence deciding,
because preferences should be defined only with outcomes and connected
probabilities, while because of framing effect different coding of outcomes (as
gains or losses) change the outcomes assessment. This is evident in the famous Kahneman
and Tversky task regarding efficacy of the health programmes expressed either
as a number of survivors or as a number of victims. It seems that negative
frames demand greater degree of cognitive processing and have longer response
timesMain research work in the field of the so called naturalistic
decision making was going on mainly in the frame of the
crisis events and radically change the view of the nature of crisis decision
making. It is not by chance, that US Army devoted a lot of resources and time
to the study of these questions, e.g. in the project TADMUS (Tactical Decision Making UnderStress). Many bad decisions whose outcomes count in human lives
demand this. Up to then decision-making researches study only one segment of the
decision-making, the decision event. Main part of the decision making should be
going on when decision maker (usually one person) overview known and defined
set of choices, weight probable consequences of particular choice and then
select one, depending on his goals and values, which should be stable and
known. Researchers focused on the selection process of the best alternative.
Involved participants were usually
inexperienced, e.g. students. But then psychology went out of the laboratory in
the real life, joined firemen, police officers, medical staff, etc. that is experienced
participants. Quite different image of the decision making appeared. Classical decision-making
models were not adequately describing the situation. Decision makers focused on
the definition of the situation, and on the base of their experience in similar
previous events, while taking into account constraints of the given situation,
choose the most adequate response. Possible responses were assessed on the base
of the projection of their possible consequences into the future and search for
the possible unwanted effects. If unwanted effects were not predicted, the
response was selected. This new approach differs at least in three ways from
the classical one, which emphasizes simultaneous assessment of a number of
alternatives, being based on analytical methods of values and probabilities connection,
and was searching for the optimal solutiondecision maker pays his attention
mostly to situation assessment or to the discovering of the nature of the problem,
·
particular
alternatives are judged successively with the help of mental
simulation ofoutcomes, and
·
alternative
is accepted if it is satisfying (not necessary optimal).
Fundamental difference lie in the fact
that in everyday situations decisions are the part of the
larger tasks, which
decision maker try to accomplish. In the laboratories decision-making was going on outside the meaningful connections,
while in reality it is the mean of achieving the wider goals. Decisions are the
part of the broader tasks consisting of the problem definition, understanding of
meaningful solutions, acting for goals achievement, and effects assessments.
As one of the researchers said ,
studying decision-making in dynamic, real time context changes it into the part
of the study of action, and not study of choice. Decision making is the
matter of guiding and maintaining the continuous flow of
behaviour directed toward the set of goals and not the set of separated events
of choice dilemmas. Decision-making in reality is a joint function of two
factors :
·
task
characteristics, and
·
individual’s
knowledge and experience relevant for the task.
Decision-making is often going on in stressful conditions.
Stress is caused mainly by the
following characteristics of the situations, called
stressors :
·
multiple
information sources,
·
incomplete,
conflicting information,
·
rapidly
changing, evolving scenarios,
·
requirements
for team coordination,
·
adverse
physical conditions,
·
performance
pressure,
·
time
pressure,
·
high
work/information load,
·
auditory
overload/interference,
·
threat.
They represent important factors and conditions in
decision-making, which often determine the nature of decision, consequent
behaviours and their outcomes.
Conclusion From This Article
Decision making as one of the most characteristic human
mental activity is shown to us – orbetter studies and thinking about it are
showing this – as a very complex phenomenon. The image of the human decision
maker is circling between irrationality and bounded rationality. If classical
models of rational (economic) human took him from time and space, and put him
with his decision making, that should be rational, but was not, into certain
abstract frozen space, with the development of knowledge he is gradually coming
back, to find himself in the theories of naturalistic decision making. The
image of the alive concrete human, adapted to his environment, is exchanging
its artificial abstract image.
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