Three Roads to Commitment: A Trimodal Theory of Decision Making

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Three Roads to Commitment: A Trimodal Theory of Decision Making 2 If planners, administrators, and managers are being equipped today with tools and techniques for articulating goals and evaluating projects and programs, how should they develop those alternative solutions which they are to evaluate… Are there any normative techniques for systematically designing alternative solutions in a given situation If there are, how appropriate are they in the light of actual behavior and perceived constraints in real environments How crucial these questions are is clear when we realize that the best evaluation techniques can only be applied to those alternatives which are given. [italics added] Compelling as Alexander’s point is, it does not state the paradox in full generality. He could have posed the same questions not just about option generation but also about identifying fundamental goals, adhering to or abandoning decisions already made, or even more fundamentally, framing a situation in terms of a particular set of objects and concepts. Standard choice methods must make do with given goals, given ways of describing the situation, and given options, even though agents remain capable of thought even as they evaluate and execute actions in a changing and uncertain world. Are there normative principles and methods that apply to these processes Empirical research in naturalistic environments casts doubt not only on the importance of choice, but on whether, in many cases, it occurs at all. Experienced decision makers often recognize appropriate actions quickly in familiar environments (Klein, 1998); when they are uncertain, they often explore options sequentially rather than concurrently, stopping when they find a satisfactory solution rather than looking for the best (Lindblom, 1959; Mintzberg, 1975; Simon, 1987). Conversely, supposedly distinct processing stages (e.g., situation assessment, goal specification, option generation, option evaluation-and-selection, and action) occur in parallel, or in complex embedded cycles, rather than in a linear series (Schön, 1983; Braybrooke & Lindblom, 1963; Witte, 1972; Mintzberg, Raisinghani, & Théorêt, 1976). As Witte (1972, p. 180) observed, “human beings cannot gather information without in some way simultaneously developing alternatives. They cannot avoid evaluating these alternatives immediately, and in doing this they are forced to a [revisable] decision. This is a package of operations and the succession of these packages over time constitutes the total decision making process." The standard story attributes this real-world disarray to human capacity limitations, irrationality, or ignorance, to be rectified by decision aids and training. Other researchers suspect that there is an order in naturalistic decision making which the conventional story overlooks or undervalues. Naturalistic Decision Making research (e.g., Klein, Orasanu, Calderwood, & Zsambok, 1993; Hoffman, 2007; Mosier & Fischer, 2011) has rejected the standard story, but has not provided a comprehensive theory to take its place. Yet the search for order across a full range of human
Three Roads to Commitment: A Trimodal Theory of Decision Making 3 decisions should be of paramount concern to cognitive engineers. Decision support or training may disrupt rather than improve decision making unless it is based on an apt understanding of decision making itself. Overview This paper introduces a theoretical framework, Trimodal Decision Making, or TDM. The discussion proceeds in five steps. In the next section, “Decision Making as Change in Commitment,” we develop a more inclusive conception of decisions, discuss an empirically testable approach to intentions, and describe some dimensions along which they vary. In the section, “Three Modes of Decision Making,” we argue that three distinct paths to change in commitment can be usefully distinguished – by starting points, questions that guide attention, deeply divergent justifications that they construct for actions, and different functionalities and priorities. In “Decision Strategies as Paths through the Framework,” we use diagrams and examples to show how TDM relates to, and accommodates insights from, other decision research paradigms, including both rational choice theory (the standard story) and naturalistic alternatives proposed by Klein (1993), Beach, (1990), Connolly & Wagner (1988), Orasanu & Fischer (1997), Pennington & Hastie (1993), and Montgomery (1993). The next section defines subjective and objective senses of “Action Uncertainty” in terms of questions, answers, and methods for answering questions that move decision makers toward actionable commitment with varying degrees of efficiency; it also provides a decision modes x methods taxonomy of decisions and existing decision research paradigms. In the Conclusion, we briefly sketch high-level prescriptive implications for aiding and training. One of the most important tasks of cognitive engineering is to identify the different sources of rationality associated with commitments in particular domains, to identify the most critical obstacles to those commitments, and develop ways of overcoming them. We do not claim that TDM is the only way to carve up the domain of decision making, or that it says everything there is to say about it. Our goal is nevertheless ambitious: to propose a substantive and insightful (or at least thought-provoking) theoretical framework for use in decision making research and prescription in real-world environments. Theories should be judged by efficiency (i.e., how much they explain relative to how much they assume), and fruitfulness ( e.g., novel empirical predictions and practical applications). With regard to efficiency, TDM will hopefully be recommended by a distinctive combination of empirical coverage and simplicity. A small number of concepts centering around an empirically grounded notion of commitment is sufficient to generate a richer and more inclusive view of decision making than offered by the standard story, to distinguish three decision making modes along normative and descriptive lines, delineate different types of action uncertainty, accommodate the findings of important existing decision research paradigms, and point to future directions in descriptive research
Page 1 and 2: Three Roads to Commitment: A Trimod
Page 3: Three Roads to Commitment: A Trimod
Page 55 and 56:
Three Roads to Commitment: A Trimod
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77:
show all

Three Roads to Commitment: A Trimodal Theory of Decision Making

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?