PSYB57H3 Chapter 11: Chapter 11. Making Decisions
Document Summary
Decision making refers to the mental activities that takes place in choosing among alternatives. Typically, decisions are made in the face of some amount of uncertainty. Success is often taken to be the rationality of the decision. Rationality: a property of thinking or decision making such that the processes used are selected with the processor"s overall goals and principles in mind. Cognitive overload: breakdown of cognitive processing that occurs when the available information exceeds processing capacity. Decision making can be divided into five different categories - these tasks often occur in a particular order, but there may be cycles to an order, in which certain tasks are revisited and redone. The idea is that the decision maker takes stock of his or her plans for the future, his or her principles and values, and his or her priorities. Decision structuring: the process(es) by which an individual selects one course of action from among alternatives.
