Basics of Decision Making Research Assignment Paper (Essay Sample)

Basics of Decision Making
Victor Mwangi
Basics of Decision Making
Decision-making can be defined as a problem-solving activity terminated by a solution deemed to be satisfactory. It is therefore a process which can be more or less HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality" \o "Rationality"rational or HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrationality" \o "Irrationality"irrational and can be based on HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explicit_knowledge" \o "Explicit knowledge"explicit or HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge" \o "Tacit knowledge"tactic knowledge.
A large part of decision-making involves the analysis of specific set of options described in terms of evaluative procedure. Then the task might be to arrange these alternative options in terms of how good they are to the decision-maker(s) when all the criteria are considered together. Another task might be to find the best option or to determine the relative total priority of each alternative (for instance, if alternatives represent projects competing for funds) when all the procedures are considered simultaneously. Solving such problems is the focus of HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-criteria_decision_analysis" \o "Multiple-criteria decision analysis"multiple-criteria decision analysis . This aspect of decision-making, although very ancient, has attracted the interest of many researchers and practitioners and is still highly debated as there are  HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-criteria_decision_analysis" \o "Multiple-criteria decision analysis" multiple-criteria decision analysis methods which may yield very different results when they are applied on exactly the same data. This leads to the formulation of a paradoxical HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision-making_paradox" \o "Decision-making paradox"decision-making. 
HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic" \o "Logic"Logical decision-making is an important part of all science-based professions, where specialists apply their HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge" \o "Knowledge"knowledge in a given area to make informed decisions. A good example is, medical decision-making often involves a HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_diagnosis" \o "Medical diagnosis"diagnosis and the selection of appropriate treatment. But HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_decision-making" \o "Naturalistic decision-making"naturalistic decision-making research shows that in situations with higher time pressure, higher stakes, or increased ambiguities, experts may use HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_%28psychology%29" \o "Intuition (psychology)"intuitive decision-making rather than structured approaches. They may decide to follow a HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_primed_decision" \o "Recognition primed decision"recognition primed decision that fits their experience and arrive at a course of action without weighing any options. Human performance has been the subject of active research from several perspectives:
HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology" \o "Psychology"Psychological: examining individual decisions in the context of a set of needs, preferences and values the individual has or seeks.
HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognition" \o "Cognition"Cognitive: the decision-making process regarded as a continuous process integrated in the interaction with the environment.
Prescriptive: this is the of personal decisions related with the logic of decision-making, and the invariant option it leads to.
The decision-maker's surrounding can play a part in the decision-making process. A good example is, surrounding complexity is a factor that influences cognitive function. A complex environment is an environment with a large number of different possible states which come and go over time. Research done at the HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Colorado" \o "University of ...