The tendency of unconscious thought toward global processing style

This study explored whether unconscious thought has a tendency to process information globally. In three experiments, a Navon task was used to activate global or local processing styles. Findings showed that in the unconscious-thought groups, those performing the local Navon task presented a poorer decision-making performance when compared to those performing the global Navon task (Experiment 1); participants reported that their judgments were made based on partial attributes (Experiment 2), and evaluated a target individual mainly based on information consistent with stereotypes (Experiment 3). These results showed that when presented with distracter tasks, conscious thought activates local processing, which impairs its ability to process information globally. However, this impairment would not happen if global processing were activated instead. This study provides support to the idea that unconscious thought has a tendency to process information globally.     

ACADEA—a decision support system for faculty performance reviews

ACADEA, a multi‐criteria decision support system for the performance review of individual faculty, is presented. Developed from the point of view of a department that is facing exogenously as well as self imposed objectives, the support system looks upon the aggregate performance of an academic department as the result of individual faculty member's multi‐criteria evaluations. Five objectives, research output, teaching output, external service, internal service and cost, are operationalized into criteria. The system is applied to a university department with 30 faculty members evaluated over a 3‐year period. The results identify promotional candidates and reveal underlying problems in managerial consistency, departmental sub‐groupings and the incentive structure. The outcomes of the support system are consistent with the position that equity in faculty governance does not necessarily imply equal loads on all tasks. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Passive and Active Compensability Multicriteria ANnalysis (PACMAN)

Determining intercriteria relations is an important issue in MCDA. In order to handle this problem, this paper presents a new approach to the concept of compensation in multicriteria analysis, named PACMAN (Passive and Active Compensability Multicriteria ANalysis). The notion of compensability introduced here is decision maker oriented, relying only on information provided by him. In PACMAN compensability is analysed by taking into consideration two criteria at a time and distinguishing the compensating criterion from the compensated one. Separating active and passive effects of compensation allows one to point out a possible asymmetry of the notion of compensability. A valued binary relation of compensated preference is introduced. Compensated preference can be used for a modelization of the preference structure. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modelling risk and uncertainty with the analytic hierarchy process

This paper proposes methods for modelling risk and uncertainty with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). We start by showing why benefit/risk ratios, as described in previous literature, might be an improper modelling approach. We then introduce prototypical case studies where risk plays a role in multicriteria decision making. These cases demonstrate how the AHP can be used to derive relative probabilities, multiple criteria outcome measures, risk criteria, and risk adjustment factors. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ethical Challenges Arising in the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Overview from the Association of Bioethics Program Directors (ABPD) Task Force

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised a host of ethical challenges, but key among these has been the possibility that health care systems might need to ration scarce critical care resources. Rationing policies for pandemics differ by institution, health system, and applicable law. Most seem to agree that a patient’s ability to benefit from treatment and to survive are first-order considerations. However, there is debate about what clinical measures should be used to make that determination and about other factors that might be ethically appropriate to consider. In this paper, we discuss resource allocation and several related ethical challenges to the healthcare system and society, including how to define benefit, how to handle informed consent, the special needs of pediatric patients, how to engage communities in these difficult decisions, and how to mitigate concerns of discrimination and the effects of structural inequities.     

‘If something doesn’t look right,go find out why’: how intuitive decision making is accomplished in police first-response

ABSTRACT

Intuition is an important mechanism by which organizational actors make significant decisions; however, precisely how intuitive decisions are taken is not well understood and hence is worthy of closer scrutiny. First-response decisions, because of the conditions under which they are executed, offer researchers an interesting and relevant context for the study of intuitive decision making in organizations. We used qualitative methods to explore how “peak performing” police officers used intuition in first-response decisions. Our findings show that intuition’s role in first-response occurs in two differing but complementary ways: “recognition-based intuition” and “intuition-based inquiry”. This finding builds on previous intuition research and informs current debates in behavioural sciences regarding “default-intervention” versus “parallel-competitive” variants of dual-process theory; it also reveals how a complex and situated mix of intuition and analysis can guide effective decision making and support peak performance in uncertain, dynamic and complex environments that typify many organizational decision processes. Our findings contribute to intuition research by extending the current theory of “intuition-as-expertise” in going beyond a simple “recognize-and-respond” model. We propose a “Perceiving-Knowing-Enacting-Closing” framework which captures the complex role that intuition in combination with analysis plays in police first-response decisions, and discuss implications for decision-making policies and practices in organizations.     

Forcing the issue: Little psychological influence in a magician’s paradigm

Forcing is usually described as the effect in which stage magicians covertly influence decisions made by spectators. The phenomenon has been subject to a number of recent articles and is typically placed within the context of social influence, priming, decision making, awareness, free will, and the science of magic. In the present paper I will argue that forcing researchers, when framing and describing the phenomenon, have exaggerated what magicians typically achieve with the technique. Specifically, the magician is said to influence and manipulate the spectator’s decision when in fact the vast majority of forces do not include any such influence. The consequence of this misrepresentation is that psychologists will be led to believe that the forcing phenomenon has more to contribute to priming and the psychology of influence than it actually does.     

Ordering the alternatives of a strategic plan for Valencia (Spain)

In this article we present an evaluation of the initiatives involved in a Strategic Plan for Valencia City (Spain) by applying a method to assist Multi‐Criteria Decision‐Making. The complexity of the case lies in the size of the problem, 47 alternatives and 10 criteria, as well as the need to reach a consensus on the final result. The method followed, which has been named PRES Multi‐expert, can be generalized and applied to other complex cases. Thirteen experts have participated in the process, representing different political and social groups of the City, a group of analysts, formed by three lecturers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, and a consultant, representing the City Hall of Valencia. The PRES algorithm was used to order the alternatives developed in 1992 by Gómez‐Senent at this University. In this article we highlight the advantages of applying the Multi‐Criteria Decision‐Making Aid techniques and the importance of following a procedure to select the criteria, pondering on them and evaluating the alternatives. This procedure ensures that the parties interested in or affected by the decision take part in deciding what measures to adopt. The Multi‐expert PRES method facilitates this participation and can be adapted to different types of problems. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An evolutionary approach to support decision making with linear decision models

In this paper we consider decision problems that can be described as linear decision models. These models have been traditionally solved using linear programming, fuzzy linear programming, multiple-objective linear programming or ‘what-if’ analysis. Using these approaches, one encounters a number of difficulties. We propose an ‘evolutionary approach’ to overcome these difficulties. In the proposed approach the decision maker does not have to precisely specify the model (i.e. the objective functions, the RHS values, etc.) at the beginning of the solution procedure. In fact, the model evolves as the solution procedure proceeds.