For questions regarding the cognitive processes which result in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios.
Cognitive process resulting in the selection, ranking, or sorting of alternative actions.
Questions tagged [decision-making]
153 questions
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When faced with a choice and trying to make a quick decision, are 2 options better than 3 or more options?
Bastardi & Shafir (1998) show how too much data disabilitates your decision making. There is also the popular Paradox Of Choice argument.
However, I can't find a reference stating that, when faced with a decision, 2 options are better than 3 or many…
opyate
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How does the brain know what to crave?
I remember that at some point on House, M.D., one of the characters mentioned that her patient craved milk because it contained some chemical he/she needed. How does the brain figure out what chemicals it can get from what foods, and by extension…
Jacob
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Research that shows that people infer causation from correlation
It is well known and frquently quoted that "correlation does not imply causation".
Nonetheless, I've scoured the wikipedia article "Correlation does not imply causation" and the relevant keywords in google scholar, and could not find any research…
Michal Tenenberg
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Are there validated measures to perception of decision making process alignment?
I want to test an idea about how the perception of decision making process alignment with another party influences the tendency to accept information from that party. For example, if my wife and I both consider the cost, nutrition, and the presence…
Jim
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What is the name of the phenomenon that would make me choose A over B because I was influenced by a trend?
I've looked at these 1,2,3 and I don't think they answer my question fully.
Let's say it's election time and I'm on the fence about who to vote for. I see some survey on the news and seeing party A has more vote intentions, it tends to sway my…
curious
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Studies on games where optimal play involves losing for counterfactual gain
Apologies for not knowing the nomenclature; I'll try to describe what I mean.
The optimal strategies for some imperfect information games involve purposefully doing badly in some cases, so that bluffs are more effective in other cases. You…
Craig Gidney
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3
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Why do soldiers seldom "fight to the death" even if they are going to be killed anyway?
At the siege of Masada, a group of heavily outnumbered Jewish soldiers elected to commit suicide en masse, rather than to be captured by the besieging Romans, who would probably have committed them to a tortuous death by crucifixion. Such an action…
Tom Au
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What clustering algorithms are most similar to how humans cluster data?
Clustering algorithms group unlabelled data, such as in the following example:
Which clustering algorithms are similar to how humans do clustering? (e.g. Connectivity based clustering (hierarchical clustering), Centroid-based clustering,…
user24700
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Is it harder to perform a difficult act or avoid doing a compelling act?
Suppose what we have a set of choices $S$. Also suppose that $S$ consists of two "difficult" choices $X$ and $Y$ that rely on action and inaction respectively. So $S = \{X, Y \}$. Is it more difficult to perform $X$ or to not perform $Y$?
For…
thosd
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Do people always decide to do things that they believe will provide them the maximum amount of positive feelings in their conscious life?
Is there any scientific study or theory which supports the following claim? - People always decide to act in accordance with things they believe will guarantee them the maximum amount of positive feelings in their conscious life.
Are there any other…
TKN
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Can we truly random choose which finger to raise by counting to 10 in your mind?
If a test person is asked to raise one of his 10 fingers at a given signal, is the choice truly random if he counts in his mind from 1 to 10 and associates with each number one of his fingers? The 1 he associates with the left pink, the 2 with his…
Deschele Schilder
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Choices and satisfaction
Say person A can choose from some items one to be his own. After some time he can come back and replace it with another.
A person B can choose as well but cannot replace once chosen.
Are both the persons going to be satisfied/ dissatisfied after…
Kashmiri
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Preconditioning before asking a favor
Suppose I want to borrow an item, such as a phone charger from someone.
Instead of directly asking them, "Could I borrow a charger?"
I first ask this question: "Do you have a charger?"
The act of asking a question of fact (whether they have the item…
Angle Qian
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How does our brain allow us to commit suicide?
How does our brain allow us to commit suicide?
Our brain and everything in our body has developed to ensure our survival. At the prospect of a threat to our life, our brain does everything to save us with all those reflexes. In spite of this, some…
Mohan
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