PR 605 Lecture 15: Rational decision making and intuition

• School: Ball State University
• Department: Public Relations
• Course: PR 605
• Professor: Ingrid Cummings

Document Summary

We normally think the best maker of decisions is rational, while making consistent choices that maximize value with constraints that are specified. There is a six-step rational model of making decisions that are defined as rational decisions. The rational decision-making model assumes the maker of decisions has: Can find the relevant options in an unbiased way. Chooses the option with the highest utility. Most decisions don"t actually follow a rational model. Normally, people are perfectly content finding a solution that is reasonable or acceptable to an issue instead of the optimal outcome or choice. We normally limit our options to the neighborhood of the symptom of the problems and the alternative that we currently have at our disposal. Most of the significant decisions made are made with judgement instead of a defined prescriptive model. People are very unaware of decisions made sub-optimally. Steps in the rational decision-making model: define the problem, identify the decision criteria, allocate weights to the criteria.