Threats to Effective Problem Solving and Creativity (I)

The inert knowledge problem

Peoples ability to overcome problem by using their relevant knowledge. For

example, if a Multinational Company faced some law problem, they will
consulted with many expert lawyer to settle their problem in order to avoid
any damage to their company. Inert knowledge problem is the inability to
access relevant knowledge when we most need it on daily life (Whitehead,
1929). It can be explained as many people recall a fact, but tend to be unable
to effectively apply it to a significant problems. Inert knowledge is lifeless,
intangible, immobile and incapable of transformative action or application to
overcome any problems. Hence, it will cause many people recall the fact or
theory but cannot explain it by their knowledge and skill. They cannot use
what they are learn to identify or solve problems.
The inert knowledge problem was analyzed by Renkl et al. (1996). There are
consists of three categories of explanation including some deficits that are
expected to influence the acquisition of inert knowledge by Renkl et al.
(1996). First, one compromises explanations with respect to deficits in the
structure of knowledge. De Jong et al. (1996) distinguish four types of
knowledge: situational knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural
knowledge and strategic knowledge. The term deficits in the structure of
knowledge means that relevant knowledge is not available. It can be
explained as students learned isolated facts, concepts or theory. Commonly
can be explained by insufficient conceptual knowledge. For example,
Students can give suitable definition, principle or concepts about solution of
the problem, but they are not able to give a step by step guide for overcome
the problems. Second, situated nature of all learning. It can be explained as
all knowledge is linked to the context in which learning takes place. Third,
access of knowledge. Commonly, relevant knowledge are needed. But it
cannot be used, because of lacking control over their own meta-cognitive
processes. For example, students need to be motivated to use their skills,
learning strategies and their knowledge. Therefore, inert knowledge problem
is significant become a threats to effective problem solving and creativity.

Availability heuristic

According to Tversky and Kahnermans (1973) availability heuristic, people

sometimes judge the frequency of events in the world by the ease with which
examples come to mind. This process can be noticeable by asking
participants to assess the relative likelihood of two categories in which
instances of the first category are more difficult to recall than instances of the
second category, despite the fact that instances of the first category are
common in the world. For example, most people think the letter R more often
appears in English words as the first letter than the third letter, presumably
because the first letter provides a better cue for recalling instances of words
than does the third letter. In fact, R appears more often as the third letter
than first letter in English words. In addition, a heuristic is a mental shortcut

that helps us make decisions without having to spend a lot of time

researching and analyzing information. It can be definitely extremely helpful,
but they also can lead to errors in judgment or threats to effective problem
solving and creativity.

Representativeness

Representativeness can be linked to heuristic. Representativeness heuristic is

a mental shortcut that helps us make a decision by comparing information to
our mental prototypes. Generally, it can be known as stereotype of people,
which sometimes people just looks the surface of things, but frequently is
wrong and overestimated. For example, if someone looks like fierce, terrible
or keeping a straight face, you will assume that this kind of people was
unfriendly and dont want become friend to he or she. But in fact, this kind of
people are talkative when they start contact each other and start to get to
know each other. If he or she dont want make the first move to knowing each
other, it can cause a giant of lose. Most of the manager are talkative and
socialist to expand their business and making friend global. Therefore, dont
let your stereotypes become your threats to effective problem solving and
creativity.

Anchoring and adjustment

According to Tversky and Kahneman (1974), people use a reference point as

an anchor and adjust the result up or down as deemed appropriate. If a
people want to buy laptop and set the target RM2000 to purchase a laptop. In
fact, sometimes they will overestimated the price they want to purchase. For
example, some sales people might describe the most expensive model first
rather than average model. If customers are introduced to the expensive
model rather than average model first, they are especially likely to purchase
expensive model because they assume expensive option more value,
function than average model. Most of the anchors must be carefully set
because it will be vary adjust from anchor you set.

Unwarranted causation

Unwarranted causation are relate between two events is unwarranted

because we do not know the direction of causality. For example, do you think
that a people who doesnt finish their higher education will not able to survive
in their social or get a good job? In fact, many of the entrepreneur are
successful in their own interested field such as Bill Gates who dropped out of
Harvard and spend a lot of time to develop the Microsoft software. We cannot
assume all of the people cannot be success and making a wrong decision to
future.

Belief perseverance

The perseverance effect is the tendency of people to continue believe that

something is true even though it is revealed to be false or has been confirm.
For example, imagine that you have taken a test and the result scored poorly
than your imagine. You also learn the exam was scored poorly. In fact, you
cannot denied the result and change it, because it is exist. In negotiation, if
you and your opponent has an erroneous belief about the other, even though
when it proven wrong, the belief may still prevail. Negotiator must be
carefully to hold the belief perseverance and be cognizant of faulty beliefs
than opponent.

Illusory correlation

Illusionary correlation is the tendency to see invalid correlations between

events. For example, people sometimes assume that two events occurred
together at one point in the past, one of the event must be the cause of the
other. In fact, there are no relationship exists between two of the events. For
example, a woman interviewing a jobs. She believes that she will gets a
better response from interviewer when she wears a specific pair of necklace,,
so she wears those necklace to every interviews. Illusory correlation is a
logical error that can lead to taking a mistaken decision. It should be avoided
in the negotiation table.
Threats to Effective Problem Solving and Creativity (II)

Just world

Most of us believe that the world is a fair place: People get out of life what
they deserve and deserve what happens to them. For examples, people
believe that good people are likely more lucky and comfortable on their life
that bad people. It depends on your impression on the world. In addition, if
we believe that good things could easily happen to us such as get a high
salary, the world is harmony and full of predictable.

Hindsight bias

Hindsight bias is to a pervasive human tendency for people to be remarkably

adept at inferring a process once the outcome is known but be unable to
predict outcomes when only the processes and precipitating events are
known. It also can be explain as the tendency of people to overestimate their
ability to have predicted an outcome that could not possibly have been
predicted. For example, a student nervous to take an exam because he or she
study on the last minute. When student take exam, he or she feel less
confidence about the results. However, when results come out shown B+,
He or she shout out to friends that he or she will pass the exam and actually
believe it in hindsight.

Functional fixedness

Functional fixedness occurs when a problem solver basses a strategy on

familiar methods (Adamson & Taylor, 1954). It will often prevents negotiator

from thinking another alternative solutions or methods to overcome

problems. For example, if negotiator discuss an issue with opponent, they will
using one of the methods to overcome the issue. This is called functional
fixedness that can lead negotiator do not touch or take action in another
alternative to settle issue.

Set effect (negative transfer)

Set effect most relate to the functional fixedness, in which in prior experience
can also have negative effects in new problem-solving situations. It also can
be known as negative transfer, it able to limit a managers ability to develop
strategies that are of sufficient breadth and generality. For example, skills or
knowledge learned for one activity inhibit the performance of another activity.
If the two activities are similar, but are performed differently (perhaps done in
a different order) then people must mentally remap their view. Changes often
create more or new errors because of transfer effects. For example, if workers
already know how to perform an action with the old system and know how to
fix problem. When a system upgraded, workers must need to learn that
system in order to develop their work performance more efficient and
efficiency. Bu for users view, this changes may cause errors because
although old knowledge no longer applies, they inadvertently tried to apply it.
Negative transfer makes people try to use the same actions that worked for
related tasks. Therefore, negative transfer should be avoided.

Selective attention

Selective attention are people who only more focus or remember selective
alternatives or things to get the attention to it. That kind of alternatives or
things should be attractive to people to take attention to it. For example, in
negotiation table, you must be a talkative, socialist, attractive people to
appeal others people for your requirement. In others words, selective
attention is simply of act of focusing on a particular object for a period of time
while simultaneously ignoring irrelevant information that is also occurring. For
example, if a manager pay attention to your talk, he or she may apply
selective attention in a noisy place with a lots of people.

Overconfidence effect

The overconfidence effect refers to unwarranted levels of confidence in

peoples judgment of their abilities and the occurrence of positive events and
underestimates of the likelihood of negative events. In negotiation table
involving third-party dispute resolution, negotiators on each side believe the
neutral third party will adjudicate in their favor. In 2009, Google and Yahoo!
Each tried to purchase Yelp (popular review site). Google offered $500 million
to Yelp, but Yahoo! Made more attractive financially to Yelp by amount nearly
$750 million. Yelp they feel overconfidence that they can take more offer from
them and do not reply Google and Yahoo! In addition, Yelp negotiators also
told Google that they receive offer from Yahoo! But google do not tend to
increase the offer price. In a result, Yelp came away with no deal and no

money. The result awareness to negotiators do not deny and overconfidence

because it can cause trouble to the negotiation table.

The limits of short-term memory

Short term memory is the part of mind that able to hold the information
currently in the focus of our attention. It contribute a limited capacity or
storage and quantity to us which is only about five or nine symbols or coded
items may be currently active (to be remember). For example, when manager
present about the companys profit on the financial report, you will only
remember five to nine pieces of information. Without deliberate rehearsal,
the information that you remember from manager will disappear and be
replaced by new information perceived by your own sensory registers. In
conclude, we could perceived much more information compare to we
remember.

De Jong, T. & Ferguson-Hessler, M. (1996). Types and Qualities of Knowledge.

Educational Psychologist, 31(2), 105 113.
Renkl, A.; Mandl, H. & Gruber, H. (1996). Inert Knowledge: Analyses and
Remedies. Educational Psychologist, 31(2), 115 121.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging
frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 207232