This study tested the effects of two instructional aids in a complex, dynamic environment, specifically, a business simulation. Participants studied (1) a "causal map," which depicted key variables in an interconnected network, (2) a textual outline of the same relationships, or (3) no-aid. With the relevant aid still available, the participants…

An individual's decision-making process is defined as sets of temporally sequential subprocesses by which he receives, evaluates, and acts on information under conditions of uncertainty. The stages of this process are initial choice, analysis and synthesis. A modified version of Form E of the Dogmatism Scale and an original Political Issue…

Decisions assume some level of interdependency between knowledge and know-how, these being distinct realities. Knowledge refers to the understanding one has of a phenomenon while know-how refers to one's capability of actions on a phenomenon. Information can be related to decision only by transforming data which is held in a semiotic memory into…

This report presents the results of research that examined widely diverse decision problems and attempted to specify their common behavior elements. To take into account the psychological complexity of most real-life decision problems, and to develop a tentative organization of decision behavior that will embrace the many, highly diverse types of…

Twenty-two decision groups in three manufacturing and three research and development organizations are studied to identify the characteristics of the environment that contribute to decision unit members experiencing uncertainty in decisionmaking. (Author)

It was hypothesized that increases in the amount and specificity of information furnished to a discussion group would facilitate group decision making and improve other aspects of group and individual performance. Procedures in testing these assumptions included varying the amounts of statistics, examples, testimony, and augmented information…

The author presents a decision-making model for women who are in the process of making career decisions and choices. Implications for going through this process are discussed. (HLM)

Most research on information utilization in judgment and decision making has followed two basic approaches: "regression" and "Bayesian." Each has characteristic tasks and characteristic information that must be processed to accomplish these tasks. There has been a tendency to work within a single approach with minimal communication between the…

College debaters who go to law school are often surprised by the differences between the processes that take place in the court of reason and the process that takes place in the court of law. The court of reason relies mainly on authoritative testimony, while the court of law relies on direct evidence. Evidence in the court of reason is either…

Four portfolio managers who handle common stocks were observed in a study that examined the preference of an alternative decision making process in an information overload situation. The week of observation was arranged so that the portfolio manager focused primarily on the decision making portion of the work rather than on the presentation and…

This unit on decision-making and discussion skills is the second of five units in a ninth grade social studies course (course described in SO 010 891). There are two major objectives: (1) given a problem, the student will make value judgments using decision-making skills; and (2) using proper discussion techniques, the student will analyze a…