Cognitive Psychology And Decision-Making Essay

In Cognitive Psychology, the study of decision-making places emphasis on how individuals make judgments that involve choices between various courses of action (Goldstein, 2011). Specifically, there are a variety of factors that influence and impact the way people make decisions. In this article both CogLab experiments discuss the “framing effects,” which has to do with the way choices are “framed” and as a result, how decisions are influenced (Goldstein, 2011, pp. 380-385). Decision-making experiments typically are conducted by asking participants to envision themselves in a situation and then make a choice between two possibilities or options. This approach is highly dependent upon participant honesty for valid results (Goldstein, 2011). According to Tversky and Kahneman (1981), when a problem is framed in different ways, predictable shifts of preference are produced by the Psychological principles which govern the perception of decision problems and the evaluation of probabilities and …show more content…
In an experiment by Paul Slovic and coworkers (2009) a case history of a mental patient was shown to psychiatrists and forensic psychologists. He then asked them to judge the likelihood that the patient would commit a violent act within six months of being discharged (Slovic et al., 2009, as cited by Goldstein, 2011). The evidence presented by the experiment conducted by Slovic that involved decisions about the mental patient, and people’s response to the lethal disease problem submitted by Tversky and Kahneman, includes the behavior differences between opt-in vs. opt-out procedures. When framed in terms of gains, people use a risk aversion strategy, but when framed in terms of losses, people use a risk-taking approach (Goldstein, 2011). Another influence over decision-making is the need and tendency that individuals have for the rationalization and justification of their decisions (Goldstein,