2. Reflective Decision Making
Chapter 11
Reflective Decision Making

3. Learning Outcomes
Explain dominance structuring and how it impacts our ability to consider our options in a full and fair-minded way
Describe and apply the strategies used by strong critical thinkers thoughtfully to manage, monitor, and self-correct their decision making
Learning Outcomes
This chapter first explains dominance structuring and how it impacts people’s ability to consider various options impartially.
Further it describes and applies the strategies used by strong critical thinkers thoughtfully to ensure right decision-making process.

4. Chapter Opening Video Chapter Opening Video
The video explains the concept of dominance structuring.
It shows how locking in too soon on a decision can be a bad idea and how important it is to think reflectively before taking a decision.

5. Dominance Structuring: a Fortress of Conviction
Making a decision - I would definitely go to the doctor
Explaining and defending ourselves
Moving from decision to action
Benefits and risks of dominance structuring
Dominance Structuring: a Fortress of Conviction
Dominance structuring: Psychological process through which humans achieve confidence in their decisions.
Human beings almost never change their mind after they have made a decision.
Making a decision - I would definitely go to the doctor
Woman is asked by interviewer whether she should trust in God or go and see a doctor when it comes to illness.
Explaining and defending ourselves
Person’s capacity for problem solving and decision making helps them to achieve their personal goals.
Moving from decision to action
Human search for a single dominant option among many possible choices.
Benefits and risks of dominance structuring
Result of dominance structuring is confidence, whether it is reasonable or unreasonable in the various options to decide upon.

6. Making a Decision - I Would Definitely Go to the Doctor
Narrative between a woman and a trained interviewer
Respondent’s arguments
Evaluating arguments
Reasoning skills
Making a Decision - I Would Definitely Go to the Doctor
Narrative between a woman and a trained interviewer
Interviewer is asking the woman whether she would go to see her health care provider if she discovered a change in her body that has caused her to worry about the possibility of breast cancer.
Respondent’s arguments
Woman abandons the line of reasoning whether she should go to doctor or sufficiently trust in God.
She is pulled by the availability heuristic as she recalls what her mother-in-law would do.
She resists the pull, saying that God does not make things complicated.
She used System-2 thinking, when she thinks how to explain to her deeply religious friends.
Evaluating arguments
People cannot establish the truth of premises about what God may want, intend or think.
Irrespective what individual logical weaknesses might be, taken together arguments are, persuasive explanations that the woman would go to doctor.
Reasoning skills
Explain the decision, not to make a decision.
Achieves her goal of creating a rationale to support her preferred option.

7. Explaining and Defending Ourselves
Objectivity in decision making
Truth-seeking and open-mindedness
Poorly crafted assignment
Explaining and Defending Ourselves
Objectivity in decision making
Problem when an individual already has a strongly held opinion on a given issue.
Truth-seeking and open-mindedness
Inclines us toward objectivity in the application of a person’s skills of analysis, interpretation, evaluation, inference and explanation.
Poorly crafted assignment
Instructor gave his students critical thinking assignments such as Gun control is a controversial issue in our nation.
Instructor came to a conclusion that was a terrible way to give a critical thinking assignment because students basically did what he had instructed them to do.
Critical thinking is a process of reflective judgment by which an individual comes to the belief.

8. Moving from Decision to Action
Phase 1: Pre-editing
Phase 2: Identifying one promising option
Phase 3: Testing the promising option
Phase 4: Fortifying the to-be-chosen option
Moving from Decision to Action
Psychological research by Henry Montgomery describes the human search for a single dominant option among their many possible choices in any given context as having phases.
Phase 1: Pre-editing
Look for reasonable ways to make the decision easier and more efficient.
Individuals use the elimination by aspect heuristic and the satisficing heuristic to make their work go more quickly.
Phase 2: Identifying one promising option
Finding an alternative more attractive than the others on at least one critically important attribute.
Phase 3: Testing the promising option
People immediately begin to test it against other options.
Decision-critical attributes: Criteria the decision maker deems to be important and relevant for the purpose of evaluating options.
Individuals focus on seeing whether their promising option has any salient disadvantages.
Phase 4: Fortifying the to-be-chosen option
People restructure their appraisals of the options to achieve dominance of one option over the others.
Restructuring can be more or less rational.
Process of de-emphasizing, bolstering, trading off, and collapsing attributes continues until people find that one alternative stands above the others as the dominant structure.

9. Job Candidates Job Candidates
Example to show how to identify one promising option.

10. Job Candidates Job Candidates
Example to show how to identify one promising option.

11. Job Candidates Job Candidates
Example to show how to identify one promising option.

12. Job Candidates Job Candidates
Example to show how to identify one promising option.

13. Discussion Question
Give an example of when you locked into a choice prematurely, and then regretted it later
What could you have done differently?
Discussion Question
Give an example of when you locked into a choice prematurely, and then regretted it later.
What could you have done differently?
The discussion question is meant to analyze the risks of dominance structuring.

14. Benefits and Risks of Dominance Structuring
Confidence to motivate individuals to act on their decisions and to sustain their efforts
People seek to establish a strong and enduring rationale for the belief that one alternative dominates over others
Unreasonable, biased, irrational, and unrealistic, the greater the risks of a poor decision
Difficult for people to reconsider a choice once it has been made or why the criticisms of their choices seem unpersuasive
Benefits and Risks of Dominance Structuring
Benefits
Confidence to motivate individuals to act on their decisions and to sustain their efforts.
People seek to establish a strong and enduring rationale for the belief that one alternative dominates over others.
Risks
Unreasonable, biased, irrational, and unrealistic, the greater the risks of a poor decision.
Difficult for people to reconsider a choice once it has been made or why the criticisms of their choices seem unpersuasive.

15. Self-Regulation Critical Thinking Skill Strategies
Critical thinking precautions when pre-editing
Critical thinking precautions when identifying the promising option
Critical thinking precautions when testing the promising option
Self-Regulation Critical Thinking Skill Strategies
Strategies to mitigate the risks of dominance structuring around a less than optimal choice.
Rely on the critical thinking skill of self-regulation.
Critical thinking precautions when pre-editing
To know about the problem, specify what is critical for decision-making, have a clear idea why an option is considered or not.
Critical thinking precautions when identifying the promising option
Analyze the options without any partiality and listen to both sides of argument.
Critical thinking precautions when testing the promising option
Evaluate all the essential decision making criteria, consider all options where equal is treated as equal and engage in truth seeking.

16. Self-Regulation Critical Thinking Skill Strategies
Critical thinking precautions when fortifying the to-be-chosen option
Critical thinking strategies for better decision making
Self-Regulation Critical Thinking Skill Strategies
Critical thinking precautions when fortifying the to-be-chosen option
Honesty is important.
Critical thinking strategies for better decision making
Use independent teams to discuss about same problem, keep deadline to take a decision, analyze any indicators and make mid-course corrections, create a culture of respect for critical thinking.

17. Critical Thinking Precautions when Pre-editing
Be sure about the problem
Specify the decision-critical attributes
Be clear about why an option is in or out
Critical Thinking Precautions when Pre-editing
Be sure about the problem
Important to identify the problem.
If a person interprets the problem incorrectly, they are certain to decide upon a solution that will be ineffective or inappropriate.
Specify the decision-critical attributes
People with strong critical thinking skills and habits of mind protect themselves from making suboptimal decisions.
By establishing primary and secondary criteria and negotiating secondary ones but holding firm to the primary ones.
Be clear about why an option is in or out
Make a reflective and deliberate judgment as to why option should remain in contention or be eliminated.

18. Critical Thinking Precautions when Identifying the Promising Option
Scrutinize options with disciplined impartiality
Listen to both sides first
Critical Thinking Precautions when Identifying the Promising Option
Scrutinize options with disciplined impartiality
When a person considers a problem, he/she should weigh the options and need to discipline himself/herself to access strengths and weakness.
Listen to both sides first
Mental discipline is required to know the both sides of an argument.
Takes a set of practiced critical thinking self-regulation skills and a strong habit of open-mindedness to resist coming to a premature decision regarding which side to believe.

19. Critical Thinking Precautions when Testing the Promising Option
Use all the essential criteria
Treat equals as equals
Diligently engage in truth-seeking and remain impartial
Critical Thinking Precautions when Testing the Promising Option
Use all the essential criteria
After knowing the problem, it is ideal to know which essential criteria would be applicable to that particular problem.
Treat equals as equals
Person should use all viable options and see the advantages and disadvantages of it.
Weigh it accordingly, treat all options as the same.
Diligently engage in truth-seeking and remain impartial
Truth-seeking helps people follow reasons and evidence irrespective where it leads to, even if they go against their preferred or favored option.
Impartiality helps people maintain their objectivity.

20. Critical Thinking Precautions when Fortifying the To-be-chosen Option
Criteria should make sense
Be honest with yourself
Critical Thinking Precautions when Fortifying the To-be-chosen Option
Criteria should make sense when compared to any other.
Trading off one criterion for another can be straightforward if the two have the same metric.
Important that individuals use honesty as an approach when it comes to choosing the right criteria or various promising options.

21. Critical Thinking Strategies for Better Decision Making
Task independent teams with the same problem
Decide when it’s time to decide
Analyze indicators and make mid-course corrections
Create a culture of respect for critical thinking
Critical Thinking Strategies for Better Decision Making
Task independent teams with the same problem
If similar problem is given to two independent teams then the recommendations may be same or different.
Will be easier to arrive to a conclusion or to a better decision.
Decide when it’s time to decide
Appropriate time should be set to arrive to a conclusion or to the final decision.
Analyze indicators and make mid-course corrections
Frequently measure progress and make necessary adjustments in order to achieve the desired outcome.
Create a culture of respect for critical thinking
Modeling and encouraging positive critical thinking habits of mind.
Inviting, acknowledging, and rewarding the constructive use of critical thinking skills.
Showing respect for people even if they advance ideas and opinions that differ markedly from other’s ideas.
Wise to invite people to supply their reasons for their recommendations.

22. Sketchnote Video Sketchnote Video
The video summarizes the benefits of reflective decision making.