DECISION MAKING, MEMORY & LEARNING

Decision Making, Memory & Learning



Decision Making, Memory & Learning

Factors that can influence decision

Every day, people are swamped decision, big and small. Learn how people got their choices is the field of cognitive psychology that has received attention. Theories have been produced to make clear how people make decisions, what causes will manipulate decisions now and in the future. In addition, a heuristic algorithm has been researched in order to understand the decision-making process.

Several factors influence decision making. These factors, including past experience (Juliusson, Karlsson, & G?rling, 2005, pp. 561-575), cognitive biases (Stanovich & West, 2008, pp. 672-695), age and individual differences (Bruin, Parker, & Fischoff, 2007, pp. 938-956), belief in personal relevance (Acevedo, & Krueger, 2004, pp. 115-134), and an escalation of commitment, influence what choices people make. Understanding the factors that influence decision making process is important to understanding what decisions are made. That is, the factors that influence the process may impact the outcomes.

Heuristics serve as a framework in which satisfactory decisions are made quickly and with ease (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008, pp. 207-222). Many types of heuristics have been developed to explain the decision making process; essentially, individuals work to reduce the effort they need to expend in making decisions and heuristics offer individuals a general guide to follow, thereby reducing the effort they must disburse. Together, heuristics and factors influencing decision making are a significant aspect of critical thinking (West, Toplak, & Stanovich, 2008, pp. 930-941). There is some indication that this can be taught, which benefits those learning how to make appropriate and the best decisions in various situations (Nokes &Hacker, 2007, pp. 492-504).

Strategy that can influence Decision Making

There are several important factors that influence decision making. Significant factors include past experiences, a variety of cognitive biases, an escalation of commitment and sunk outcomes, individual differences, including age and socioeconomic status, and a belief in personal relevance. These things all impact the decision making process and the decisions made.

Past experiences can impact future decision making. Juliusson, Karlsson, and Garling (2005) indicated past decisions influence the decisions people make in the future. It stands to reason that when something positive results from a decision, people are more likely to decide in a similar way, given a similar situation. On the other hand, people tend to avoid repeating past mistakes (Sagi, & Friedland, 2007, pp. 515-524). This is significant to the extent that future decisions made based on past experiences are not necessarily the best decisions. In financial decision making, highly successful people do not make investment decisions based on past sunk outcomes, rather by examining choices with no regard for past experiences; this approach conflicts with what one may expect (Juliusson, Karlsson, & G?rling, 2005, pp. 561-575).

In addition to past experiences, there are several cognitive biases that influence decision making. Cognitive biases are thinking patterns based on observations and generalizations that may lead to memory errors, inaccurate judgments, and faulty logic (Evans, Barston, & Pollard, 1983, ...