The Decision-Making Process

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses the core premise of this article that people are not influenced as much by factual probability data as they are by cognitive heuristics when making a decision or judgment. The paper examines the article's idea of three important heuristics; availability, representativeness and anchoring. The paper agrees with the authors' identification of heuristics, but does not agree with the extent of their influence or role in judgment. The paper maintains that other factors also come into play and must be accounted for.

From the Paper:

"The authors maintain that when a person is making a decision about something, he is likely to assign them probabilities. In the process, he will eliminate those possibilities, which have a zero probability. Once they are removed, the rest of the possibilities will be arranged according to a sub-process, which is based on three important heuristics. These heuristics are defined as availability, representativeness and anchoring. Availability is the heuristic device that is used to assess the frequency and possibility of some event. In this case frequency is connected with the number of times this event occurred in the past and possibility is connected with likelihood of it happening in the future."

More papers on The Decision-Making Process:

• Analytical Essay # 134436 : "The Decision-Making Process"
• Essay # 83584 : "The Decision-Making Process"
• Research Paper # 2151 : "Emotions and Feelings in the Decision Making Process"
• Essay # 68205 : "The Decision Making Process"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: