Decision Making And Cognitive Processes Involved

Decision making and cognitive processes involved

Summary

This article has the objective of making a fairly heard concept known, but perhaps not often taken into account as something important, as the title says, decision making is a really important factor for every field of the personal area, Since we will all have heard “in life you must learn to make two great decisions, first that you want to be, that is, you will dedicate yourself and the second when deciding who your partner will be during your way”.

Background

In ancient times, human decisions were guided by intuition, smoke, dreams, fortune tellers, prophets and the famous Oracle of Delphi. In the sixth century to. C, decisions were based on benevolence, rituals and reciprocity, what should be done "was done". In the fifth century.C, the first decisions are made by voting (Greece). The fourth century to.C, experience begins to value as a source of information for decision -making (Aristotle). 399 a. C, 500 citizens make one of the first decisions of a court: condemn Socrates to the death penalty. In 1602 the most famous dilemma of literature emerged: "to be or not" (Hamlet). 1900 Freud suggests that actions and decisions are influenced by the unconscious. In the 60s the most known matrix (swot) develops, useful for strategic decisions. In 2005, the possibility that instant decisions are sometimes better than those planned was explored.

Developing

Decision making is the process by which an choice is made between the alternatives or ways to solve different situations of life, these can be presented in different contexts: at work, family, sentimental, business, etc.

, That is, at all times decisions are made, the difference between each of these is the process or the way in which they reach them. Decision making basically consists of choosing an alternative between those available, in order to solve a current or potential problem, (even if a latent conflict is not evidenced).

Precisely the neuroscientist Moran Cerf, a professor at the Northwestern University of Illinois, has studied the neuronal mechanisms that underlie this process. His research concludes that the most convincing way to develop our happiness has little to do with material goods, our experiences or even our personal philosophy. Everything is reduced, he points out, to a series of decisions that must be made in some key moments of our life.

Types of decision

• Scheduled decisions (or execution schemes) are repetitive and routine procedures. They are explained by a set of decision -making rules or procedures. They are reflected in books on rules, decision tables and regulations. They imply under certain decisions because all the results or consequences are known in advance.
• Uncondent decisions, on the other hand, refer to unstructured or of great importance. Unlike the previous ones, they do not have pre -established rules or procedures. Scheduled decisions are feasible to be delegated to the average levels of the organization or can be automated, something that cannot be done with unchanging decisions. The risks of the application of decision methods for unchanging decision making are rigid results and the possible application of inappropriate rules.

Other types of decision

Purpose.

• Strategic. In the long term, which deal with great problems that affect much of the organization.
• Tactics. In the short term, that treat problems that make more impact on specific areas of the organization.
• Structure. Decisions can be well structured because they are well defined, the options are clear and specific and there are evaluation criteria; or not structured when they lack the above.
• Complexity. Decisions have different degrees of complexity depending on the number of factors that affect it.
• Degree of dependence and influence. There may be dependent decisions of others, or that affect others.
• Uncertainty. Decisions can be made in certainty conditions where all relevant facts are known or on the contrary, decisions can be made in uncertainty conditions.
• Circumstances. Decisions can be:
• Opportunity decisions. Taken to take advantage of the possibility of developing a new product or entering a new market.
• Decisions about problems. To affect an immediate, but not critical problem.
• Crisis decisions. Important problems that arrive at the organization almost always from outside the same.

Decision rules.

• Optimistic. Choose the option that produces the best possible result (maximax rule).
• Pessimistic. Choose the option with the highest value of the worst possible result (Maximin rule).
• Opportunity cost. What opportunity has been lost when one option is chosen and not another?
• Expected value. Choose an option according to an estimate of the probability of a specific situation occurs.

Decision theories

• The prescriptive theory is a normative method that defines and tries to explain how decisions must be made. Proposes the steps that must be followed to make good decisions and the key points that must be taken into account.
• The descriptive theory deals with describing how decisions are actually made, which often suffer the influence of subjective factors such as the personality of the individual or the pressure of the situation. The way in which people who run organizations must reach a decision (prescriptive theory) and the way they finally do so (descriptive theory) can be very different.

Decision making in different situations

• Decision in situations without problematic objective probabilities and characteristics: classical criteria. Criticism of objective probability. Subjective probability. Sensitivity analysis.
• Decision in random and ambiguous dominance situations: the expected value criteria. Decision criteria. Ambiguity. Sensitivity analysis. Bayesian decision. Amount and value of additional information
• Decision in competitive situations: Game Theory/Negotiation The competitive decision: conflict and negotiation. Game theory. Problems and characteristics. Conflict and cooperation. Zero sum games. Sum zero games. The negotiation. Theoretical characteristics. Negotiation situations and procedures.

Decision -making techniques

Regarding the techniques we will take into account the model developed by Simon for the description of the decision -making process, and which is the basis of all the models made in this regard. It consists of three main phases:

• Research (Intelligence). Environment exploration on the conditions required by decisions. The input data is obtained, processed and examined in search of indications that can identify problems or opportunities.
• Design. Invention, development and analysis of possible courses of action. This involves the processes to understand the problem, to generate solutions and to test solutions according to their feasibility.
• Choice. Selection of an alternative or course of action between those that are available. A selection is made and implemented.

A complex decision network

In order to make good decisions, it is essential to get to understand how people make their decisions and what they should do to improve them. There are four decision -making levels:

• Individual: a person’s decisions are often influenced by a set of emotions and intuitions, and by a certain approach to the present.
• Manager: decision making by managers assumes that they use models that facilitate it; especially complex decisions.
• Negotiations: This includes decisions made by several interactions between multiple participants.
• Social: decisions that include all social fabric: matters of environmental protection and health care coverage.

Decision making in administration

The human being makes personal decisions on a daily basis, but the management sector of an institution makes decisions that affect not only a person, but affect the entire company and therefore to all those who work in it or relate to it.

A truly important aspect in decision making is the degree of communication and the application of the art of listening. In the field of personal leadership there is no greater talent than a person’s communication capacity. In a leader no matter what his self-motivation, if he cannot convey his ideas to others. It is then when the importance of effective communication is understood.

The process that leads to decision making is:

• Preparation of premises
• Alternative identification
• Evaluation of alternatives, in terms of goals to be achieved
• Selection of an alternative, that is to say a decision

Tools for decision-making

• Data collection

The collection allows to unite and classify the information according to certain categories of an event or problem that you want to study. It is important to emphasize that this instrument is used for both the identification and analysis of problems and causes.

• Rain of ideas

Technique that consists in giving opportunity, to all members of a gathered group, of opinion or suggesting on a certain matter that is studied, whether a problem, an improvement plan or something else, and thus takes advantage of everyone’s creative capacity participants.

• Pareto chart

This is a graph that is represented by vertical bars from greater to lower importance, these bars represent specific data corresponding to a specific problem, the highest bar is on the left and smaller side, as it decreases the size, it is found to the right.

• Gantt diagram

Gantt’s diagram is a graphic tool that illustrates a project schedule, named for its inventor, Henry Gantt, who designed this model at the beginning of the last century. Gantt’s modern graphics also show the dependency relationships between activities and the current status of programming. A Gantt diagram lists the tasks that will be performed on the vertical axis and time intervals on the horizontal axis.

• Flowchart

A flow diagram is a diagram that describes a computer process, system or algorithm. They are widely used in numerous fields to document, study, plan, improve and communicate processes that are usually complex in clear and easy to understand diagrams. Flow diagrams use rectangles, oval, diamonds and other other figures to define the type of passage, along with connecting arrows that establish flow and sequence. 

• Interview

The interview, in the strict sense, is a dialogue between two or more people who respond to the question-response format. Its main elements are an interviewer, who makes the questions, and an interviewed normally expert in a subject of social interest, who answers them.

• Ishikawa’s diagram

This diagram is an analysis of cause and effect for problem solving, relating an effect to possible cause them to cause it. It is used when you need to find the causes of roots of a problem. It considerably simplifies the analysis and improvement of the solution of each problem, helps to visualize them better and make them more understandable, since they group the problem, or situation to be analyzed and the causes and sub-causes that contribute to this problem or situation or situation. Among others, it is also known as: fish spine diagram or cause-effect diagram.

Cognitive processes involved in decision making

Like critical thinking in decision -making, certain cognitive processes are used as they are:

• Observation: It is to apply the senses to an object or to a phenomenon, to study them as they actually occur, it can be occasionally or causally.
• Comparison: Relationship of similarity between the issues. Set attention to two or more objects to discover their relationships or estimate their differences or similarities.
• Coding: make or form a body of methodical or systematic laws. Transform through the rules of a code the formulation of a message.
• Organization: arrangement or order disposition. Rule or way that is observed to do things.
• CLASSIFICATION: Sort by having classes/categories. It is a systematic ordering of something.
• Resolution: term or conclusions of a problem, part in which the results are shown.
• EVALUATION: Make the range signal. Analysis and reflection of the previous reasoning and conclusions.
• Feedback: the process of sharing observations, concerns and suggestions, with the intention of collecting information, at the individual or collective level, to try to improve the functioning of an organization or any group formed by human beings.

Conclusions

It is clear that decision -making individually or group can affect in a positive or negative way in what is decided to do, either personal or work, deciding is not a simple issue, But there are guides that help a lot, you must only learn to look for and manage them. In addition to being clear that the fact of decision making entails a whole process to be carried out to reach the goal that is desired and in certain cases for some has some complexity unlike others.

Bibliography

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