Browsing by Subject "Decision"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Deciding not to Un-Do the "I Do": a qualitative study of the therapy experiences of women who consider divorce but decide to remain married
    (2012-11) Kanewischer, Erica J.W.
    This preliminary study explores (1) women's experience of couple's therapy while they navigated decision-making around divorcing and (2) the role that the therapy played in the women's decision not to divorce. A phenomenological approach and qualitative method was used to gain a deeper understanding of the participant's therapeutic and decision-making experience. Women that considered initiating divorce before they turned 40 and attended at least five couple's therapy sessions (N = 15) were interviewed for this study. In general, participants reported that the therapy was helpful to them, their decision-making process and their marriages. Five main themes emerged from the interviews specifically regarding the interaction of considering divorce and couples therapy. They were: Women Initiated Therapy, Therapist Was Experienced as Neutral, Therapy was Helpful, Importance of Other Factors, and Gradual Process.
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    The impact of computer decision support on military team decision making.
    (2010-08) Larson, Adam Donavon
    This dissertation work highlights extremely valuable results regarding significant costs and benefits of using a computer decision aid by analyzing the impact of such a decision support tool on military team decision making. Decision support systems (DSS) are becoming increasingly popular as an approach to aid decision makers in making better decisions in a more efficient and effective manner. However, DSSs have both costs and benefits in their utilization, and there is no guarantee that a DSS will actually improve decision making or problem solving performance. This work shows that although a DSS has many advantages and can facilitate user problem solving, brittle DSS behavior can significantly degrade user decision making. The primary goals of this work are to improve scientific understanding of situations in which DSSs may improve decision making performance and those where the use of a DSS may actually degrade performance. Specifically, the heart of this work focuses on understanding and measuring the performance benefits and costs of a solution generating DSS on individuals versus teams, and on situations in which the DSS produces "brittle," or questionable solutions. Understanding the impact of brittle behavior is especially important given the domains in which DSSs are often utilized, including military, medical, and business operations. The results of decisions in these areas greatly impact dollars and most importantly, human lives, that may be saved or lost. The decisions teams make in military situations play a vital role in determining the success or failure of operations. Decision support in this study was provided by a component of a DSS tool called Weasel. A previous study in 2004 analyzed Weasel with respect to individual decision makers' performance and behavior [9]. This study analyzed team behavior and performance in a military context with military personnel working together in three person teams. The primary questions addressed by this work are: What is Weasel's overall impact on team versus individual performance and what is the effect on user performance when Weasel exhibits brittle behavior? Brittle behavior refers to the automated decision tool offering questionable, low quality courses of action for a given situation. As all DSSs will at sometime or another exhibit some degree of brittle behavior, the impact of such behavior on user decision making is vitally important. The results showed brittle behavior does indeed negatively impact user decision making behavior, and that individuals and teams demonstrated the same levels of performance with the use of the automated decision tool. The results of this experiment will help researchers and military personnel to better understand when it is appropriate to use decision support and to better understand both the benefits and the costs in team decision making by assessing when the DSS tool facilitated improved decision making and when performance was hindered by the tool. Additionally, information may be gained regarding situations where computer support and automation use may degrade performance.
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    The influence of previous decision on subsequent decision
    (2008-12) Kim, Jungkeun
    We often make decisions repeatedly. In these repeated-decision situations, consumers' prior knowledge and experiences based on consumption have been assumed to influence their current choice processes and outcomes. However, the research literature is currently silent as to how the influence of prior decision processes or outcomes operates in making subsequent decisions. To fill this gap, this dissertation investigates the impact of previous decisions on subsequent ones. We propose that the decision structure of an initial decision can differentially affect a subsequent one. Specifically, we compare the impact of trade-off- (i.e., the decision when no option is superior to the other option among all attributes) versus dominance-related initial decisions (i.e., the decision when one option is superior to and at least not inferior to the other option among all attributes). Based on the different research streams, we suggest competing predictions regarding the role of previous decision structure on subsequent choices. One stream of research from resource- or effort-based explanations (e.g., effort-as-information and resource availability) suggests that the tendency to keep a previous choice will be stronger in the trade-off versus the dominance condition. On the other hand, the other research stream from non-resource- or non-effort-based explanations (e.g., justification and regret/negative emotional research) suggests the opposite prediction (i.e., the tendency to keep a previous choice will be stronger in the dominance versus the trade-off condition). In six studies, we found empirical evidence for the impact of previous decisions on subsequent ones. We mainly found that people who made an initial trade-off decision (vs. those who made a dominance decision) were more likely to stick to their previously chosen alternative. In addition, the empirical studies supported the notion that the underlying mechanism of this pattern was due to the "resource availability" mechanism rather than the "effort-as-information: previous effort spending as a source of information for judgment" mechanism.