Browsing by Subject "Decision Making"

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Color Theory and Psychological Connections in Marketing to College Students
(2020-12) Pratt, Chloe
There are over 30 million people in the United States that fall into the college-age population demographic (18-24 years old). This accounts for 10% of the total U.S. population (“Status and trends” 2019). Marketing to college students proves to be a challenge at times. Students are not as easily persuaded by advertisements as other demographics are. (Coray, 2020). Marketers face the problem of finding ways to persuade these consumers to purchase their products or services. One of the main ways that consumers are influenced by marketing is through the colors in logos and packaging. Most people, whether they know it or not, have preconceived ideas in their minds of what the different colors represent to them. Although each person has different color associations unique to them, they tend to be consistent between people overall. Marketers must figure out how to use these color associations to form a brand identity for the product or service they are trying to sell. In doing so, they have the ability to persuade consumer decision making. This study was designed to determine how college students perceive each color, and how their color perceptions affect their decision making. The results will be used to determine how to use color to market products or services to college aged Americans.
Creating a patient-centered report card for solid organ transplant candidates
(2024-08-15) Israni, Ajay K.; Bruin, Marilyn; Chu, Sauman; McKinney, Warren T.; Schaffhausen, Cory; Schladt, David; wmckinney@hhrinstitute.org; McKinney, Warren
Choosing a transplant center that will accept a particular candidate can be difficult and challenging for patients with end-stage organ failure. As transplant centers have varying levels of expertise, interests, and outcomes of solid organ transplant, patient health-related characteristics influence the variation in candidates centers will accept. Most transplant candidates undergo waitlist work-ups as outpatients and many undergo transplant at centers not closest to their homes. Some are listed at more than one center. Several studies suggest that patients have a choice of centers. The PI, as Deputy Director of the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR), provides comparative information to the public about each solid organ transplant center in the United States. The risk adjusted outcomes, in the report cards, account for the transplant recipient's health-related characteristics, donor characteristics and transplant related factors. Many transplant centers provide a print-out of this SRTR report card to their candidates to comply with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid rules. Unfortunately, in their current format, the report cards are not designed for transplant candidates, many of whom may have low health literacy and numeracy. The proposed work aims to develop and evaluate a patient-centered website and printouts of the SRTR report cards that will effectively communicate comparative information to transplant candidates about their alternatives when choosing transplant centers. We will develop a novel tool to allow candidates to tailor the report cards to their clinical profiles based on their health-related characteristics and to communicate information on alternative transplant centers that perform transplants in patients like them. The website will also allow patients to self-refer to centers. Here, we provide copies of the interview / focus group guide as well as examples of the demographic / clinical questionnaires completed by study participants. We are releasing these materials to allow for greater insight into the study and to enhance reproducibility.
Creating Effective Decision Aids for Complex Tasks
(Usability Professionals' Association, 2008-08) Hayes, Caroline C.; Akhavi, Farnaz
Engineering design tasks require designers to continually compare, weigh, and choose among many complex alternatives. The quality of these selection decisions directly impacts the quality, cost, and safety of the final product. Because of the high degree of uncertainty in predicting the performance of alternatives while they are still just sketches on the drawing board, and the high cost of poor choices, mathematical decision methods incorporating uncertainty have long held much appeal for product designers, at least from a theoretical standpoint. Yet, such methods have not been widely adopted in practical settings. The goals of this work are to begin understanding why this is so and to identify future questions that may lead to solutions. This paper summarizes the results of several studies by the authors: two laboratory studies in which we asked product designers to use various mathematical models to compare and select design alternatives, and a set of ethnographic studies in which we observed product designers as they worked so that we could better understand their actual practices and needs during decision making. Based on these studies, we concluded that the mathematical models, as formulated, are not well suited to designers’ needs and approaches. We propose a research agenda for developing new approaches that combine decision theoretic and usercentered methods to create tools that can make product designers’ decision making work easi
Daily Uses of Conflict-Resolution Skills: A Study of Experienced Volunteer Community Mediators
(2019-12) Zimmer, Jeanne
This qualitative, descriptive study contributes to an in-depth understanding of the informal use of conflict-resolution skills by experienced volunteer community mediators (EVCMs). Seven experienced volunteers trained in community mediation and restorative processes participated in semi-structured interviews in which they described and reflected on how they approached conflict situations in their daily lives, the domains in which they used their skills, and how they employed their skills informally. For the first time, a Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) framework was used to explore how EVCMs use their knowledge, experience, and judgment to decide whether and how to approach conflict situations. A Critical Decision Method (CDM) questioning protocol was incorporated into semi-structured Conceptual Interviews (CIs), in which EVCMs were asked to describe multiple aspects of a conflict situation and to reflect on whether and how they decided to approach it. Throughout, EVCMs' language was analyzed and used to describe their lived experience around their daily use of conflict-resolution skills. All study participants provided examples of the informal use of their conflict-resolution skills in their daily lives, in the context of their families, their workplaces, and their communities. The results of the study found that EVCMs use these skills in three distinct ways: intervention in conflict situations, conflict prevention, and management of enduring conflict. This study provided beginning evidence that there is indeed a spillover effect, or evidence of a “peace virus,” in that there are positive effects from individuals’ providing mediation services flexibly and informally to friends, colleagues, or others to whom the mediator is known.
Modeling the Depressed Mind: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Learned Helplessness, Anhedonia, and Sensorimotor Bayesian Decision-Making Processes in Depression
(2023-11) Song, Xin
Depression, a multifaceted mental health condition, presents a diverse array of behavioral and computational irregularities. In this dissertation, I employed an interdisciplinary approach, examining and bridging traditional animal and human models of depression in conjunction with computational and Bayesian approaches. These explorations span the domains of reward processing, anhedonia, and sensorimotor decision-making within the context of depression. In Chapter 1, I revisited the well-established learned helplessness model and investigated its potential associations with anhedonia—a defining feature of depression. I devised an aversive tone-based task inspired by the original learned helplessness paradigm, manipulating the perception of control. Our findings contest traditional beliefs, suggesting that helplessness is the inherent state and control is acquired. Moreover, our results suggest that it is not perceived control but stress that stands out as the primary driver in eliciting state anhedonia. In Chapter 2, our exploration of anhedonia continues, this time focusing on its behavioral manifestation. Using a Signal Detection Theory task, we probed the potential influences of learned helplessness on reward-driven behaviors. Although perceived control showed no impact over reward responsiveness, a curious disconnect emerged: while self-reported pleasure scales registered changes in state anhedonia and anxiety, these nuances failed to echo in the behavioral markers of reward responsiveness. In Chapter 3, I pivot from reward processing to the domain of sensory processing and decision-making in depression. Using a visuomotor coin-catching task, rooted in the Bayesian Decision Theory framework, we examined how depression might modulate the use of prior and likelihood information when making perceptual decisions under uncertainty. Our findings suggest that depression does not uniformly alter sensory integration, hinting that those with depression may still adeptly navigate sensorimotor tasks. Taken together, these studies present an in-depth exploration of the depressed mind and shed light on the intricacies of anhedonia, sensorimotor decision-making, and broader depression models and mechanisms.
My Doctor Said What!?: identifying and assessing online health information resources
(2017) Theis-Mahon, Nicole; Hunt, Shanda; Forbes, Nora
Objectives: Health information consumers look to the Internet to find answers to questions about their health or that of a loved one. We conducted a study to identify where individuals find online health information, how they use it, and what they think is missing. Results from this study are being used to make recommendations of how to improve services to this population. Methods: The University of Minnesota Health Sciences Libraries conducted a cross-sectional study of adults in August 2016. The survey instrument was adapted from the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS) and the Patient Activation Measure (PAM-13), administered electronically on tablets at the Minnesota State Fair, and took approximately six minutes to complete. Convenience sampling yielded a total of 281 participants. Analysis of descriptive statistics and statistics to explore relationships between variables were conducted using R, and a qualitative analysis of one survey item was conducted using NVivo. Results/Conclusion: Preliminary results show that a majority of participants use a search engine, such as Google, WebMD, or the Mayo Clinic website, to locate online health information. While most respondents were confident in their ability to evaluate the health resources they find online, only half identified indicators of quality health information. This result was confounded by the high number of participants who were health providers. Participants identified personalization of and interactivity with health websites as highly desirable.
Neurocognition in college-aged daily marijuana users
(2013-12) Petrosko Becker, Mary
Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit substance in the United States. Use, particularly when it occurs early, has been associated with cognitive impairments in executive functioning, learning, and memory. This study comprehensively measured cognitive ability as well as comorbid psychopathology and substance use history to determine the neurocognitive profile associated with young adult marijuana use. College- aged marijuana users who initiated use prior to age 17 (n=35) were compared to demographically-matched controls (n=35). Marijuana users were high functioning, demonstrating comparable IQs relative to controls and relatively better processing speed. Marijuana users demonstrated relative cognitive impairments in verbal memory, spatial working memory, spatial planning, and motivated decision-making. Comorbid use of alcohol, which was heavier in marijuana users, was unexpectedly found to be associated with better performance in many of these areas. This study provides additional evidence of neurocognitive impairment in the context of early onset marijuana use. Complications in determining cause-effect associations are discussed.
The Role of Rational Numbers in Mathematical Achievement and Decision Making
(2016-12) Houseworth, James
Understanding rational numbers requires reorganizing our initial understanding of numbers as whole numbers. Coordinating the relationship between the different symbolic formats for expressing rational numbers (i.e., as fractions and as decimals) and their underlying non-symbolic magnitudes is an important component of mathematical development in children (Fazio, Bailey, Thompson, & Siegler, 2014; Siegler & Pyke, 2013; Mazzocco et al., 2013). It is also an important component of decision making in everyday life (Simon, Fagley, & Halleran, 2004; Peters et al., 2006). The goal of the present experiments was to investigate the relationship between rational numbers, expressed in various formats, on one hand and general mathematical achievement and decision-making on the other. Two experiments demonstrated that the format of rational numbers impacts processing: the fraction format hinders magnitude processing compared to the decimal format. Experiment 1 additionally demonstrated that the precision of rational number magnitudes is related to general mathematical achievement. This is evidence that a better understanding of rational numbers is important for more abstract mathematics in adults. Experiment 2 showed that individual differences in rational number ability are also associated with individual differences in bias in decision-making. These findings have practical implications. Educationally, these results suggest that using number lines and intermixing decimal and fraction formats might improve rational number ability and therefore better prepare children for later, more abstract mathematics. Pragmatically, the results of this study suggest numerical ability alone is not a sufficient guard against biased decision making when probabilities are involved. Instead it appears other, non-numerical task features cause bias and need to be identified to make decision making more normative.
Stakeholder decision making influence and stakeholder well-being in nursing homes: the case of employees and customers.
(2009-05) Paulson, Darla Jean Flint
In this thesis, I use stakeholder theory to expand on the idea of employee empowerment in organizational behavior, recognizing that employees are but one group that can be empowered by managers, and that the empowerment of certain stakeholder groups will affect not only their own well-being, but also the well-being of other stakeholder groups. Employee empowerment therefore seen within the context of stakeholder empowerment, which is defined as allowing stakeholders influence in managerial decision making. This thesis concentrates on two types of stakeholders, employees and customers, in one industry, nursing homes. The data set includes over 1200 employees and 600 customers in 36 nursing homes. This thesis contributes to stakeholder theory by considering whether the empowerment of stakeholders, particularly employees and customers, improves stakeholder well-being. It also contributes to the field of employee empowerment, and introduces the systematic study of customer empowerment in a stakeholder framework. It makes a methodological contribution by examining in detail the potential variables that confound the relationship between employee empowerment and employee job satisfaction, occupational stress and wages. It uses Hierarchical Linear Modeling, a series of control variables, and Two Stage Least Squares to address the potential validity threats. It considers non-linearity in the relationship between employee well-being and employee satisfaction, and it considers how employee empowerment fit impacts employee outcomes or customer empowerment fit affects customer outcomes. In addition, it analyzes the relationship between employee and customer empowerment and customer service performance and customer satisfaction, variables which has not been frequently studied in this literature. The results of this study show that employee empowerment improves employee well-being and customer empowerment improves customer well-being. I also find a positive effect of employee empowerment on customer well-being, and a null effect of customer empowerment on employee well-being. The findings indicate that the level of employee and customer empowerment is a more important predictor of well-being than empowerment fit, and that the relationship between employee empowerment and employee well-being is non-linear. Evidence is also presented to indicate the importance of empowering all stakeholders in the group, rather than empowering only those who seek empowerment. These results suggest that the empowerment of at least some stakeholders results in outcomes that are positive for multiple stakeholders--that stakeholder empowerment is not a zero-sum game. The results predicting job satisfaction and wages are robust, but the results predicting occupational stress are significant in the Hierarchical Linear Modeling framework, but insignificant in the Two Stage Least Squares framework. The results predicting customer service performance and customer satisfaction are robust to various specifications, but Two Stage Least Squares could not be completed due to the lack of instruments.
Viewing Expert Judgment in Individual Assessments through the Lens Model: Testing the Limits of Expert Information Processing
(2018-05) Yu, Martin
The predictive validity of any assessment system is only as good as its implementation. Across a range of decision settings, algorithmic methods of data combination often match or outperform the judgmental accuracy of expert judges. Despite this, individual assessments still largely rely on the use of expert judgment to combine candidate assessment information into an overall assessment rating to predict desired criteria such as job performance. This typically results in lower levels of validity than what could theoretically have been achieved. Based on archival assessment data from an international management consulting firm, this dissertation presents three related studies with an overarching goal of better understanding the processes underlying why expert judgment tends to be less accurate in prediction compared to algorithmic judgmental methods. First, the Lens Model is used to break down expert judgment in individual assessments into its component processes, finding that when combining assessment information into an overall evaluation of candidates, expert assessors use suboptimal predictor weighting schemes and also use them inconsistently when evaluating multiple candidates. Second, the ability of expert assessors to tailor their judgments to maximise predictive power for specific organisations is tested by comparing models of expert judgment local and non-local to organisations. No evidence of valid expertise tailored to organisations is found as models of expert judgment local to a specific organisation performed only as well as models non-local to that organisation. Third, the importance of judgmental consistency in maximising predictive validity is evaluated by testing random weighting schemes. Here, simply exercising mindless consistency by applying a randomly generated weighting scheme consistently is enough to outperform expert judgment. Taken together, these results suggest that the suboptimal and inconsistent ways that expert assessors combine assessment information is drastically hampering their ability to make accurate evaluations of assessment candidates and to predict candidates’ future job performance. Even if they are able to demonstrate valid expert insight from time to time, over the long run the opportunities for human error far outweigh any opportunity for expertise to be truly influential. Implications of these findings for how assessments are conducted in organisations as well as recommendations for how expert judgment could still be retained and improved are discussed.

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Browsing by Subject "Decision Making"