MAHEK BRIJWANI (MA-1)

A Critical analysis of any one area of research in the field of cognitive psychology.

TOPIC: DECISION MAKING

Decision making is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a

course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either rational or
irrational. It is a process of reasoning process based on assumptions
of values, preferences and beliefs of the decision-maker. Every decision-making process
produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt action. A decision is a step that takes
place prior to the actual performance of a course of action that has been chosen. It can be
regarded as a problem-solving activity yielding a solution deemed to be optimal, or at least
satisfactory. It is therefore a process which can be more or less or
less rational or irrational and can be based on explicit or tacit knowledge and beliefs. Tacit
knowledge is often used to fill the gaps in complex decision-making processes. Usually, both
of these types of knowledge, tacit and explicit, are used together in the decision-making
process. It is therefore a process which can be more or less. The importance of decision
making lies in the way it helps you in choosing between various options. Before making a
decision, there is a need to gather all available information and to weigh its pros and cons. It
is crucial to focus on the steps that can help in taking the right decisions

Here are some following researches based on decision making:

1. Decision Making among Adolescents in relation to Peer Pressure-

Peers refer to the group of individuals of the similar age and pressure is the force exerted by
something or someone. Now combining the two terms, peer pressure is the force of a person
or group of people of the same age group on another person which makes a person to behave,
think and act in a different manner in which they want. This research was done to study the
relationship of Decision Making of adolescents with their Peer Pressure also to compare
Decision Making of adolescents on the basis of their low and high Peer Pressure. Descriptive
survey method was used for this particular study. A sample of 150 students from Chandīgarh
(75 boys and 75 girls) studying in class 11th in Arts, Science and Commerce streams was
randomly selected. From the results of the study it can be concluded that the Decision
Making ability of adolescents is strongly and negatively correlated to Peer Pressure, i.e., the
adolescents who possess higher Peer Pressure have lower Decision Making ability and vice
versa. Additionally, there exists a significant difference in the mean scores of Decision
Making of adolescents possessing low and high levels of Peer Pressure. The mean scores of
Decision Making is more for the adolescents who possess less Peer Pressure. The scale used
in the study measures the negative Peer Pressure in adolescents, i.e. the force exerted by the
persons of the similar age group, that inclines them to do something wrong under this
pressure. The act done under this influence is wrong, harmful and sometimes lead to many
disastrous results. They do such acts in order to get conformity and acceptance of their peers.
To get the peer acceptance they decide to smoke, gamble, take drugs, steal and destroy the
properties of others. They get involved in malafied activities to get peer acceptance.

2. Effects of Acute Stress on Decision Making-

Stress connotes events that the individual finds physically, physiologically or emotionally
challenging. It involves several different processes that describe adaptations to a wide array
of situations, spanning from daily hassles to traumatic life experiences.  Decision making is a
particularly important area to study because many decisions are made under stressful
conditions, such as when circumstances demand a quick course of action. Indeed, the process
of decision making in and of itself can be stressful, such as when a decision involves high
risk and its outcome is uncertain. Thus, the relationship between stress and decision making
can be bidirectional because stress may affect the quality of the decision and also be evoked
by the decision-making process. The aim of the study was to assess the effects of stress on
decision making under uncertainty. The study examined the effects of a social stressor (Trier
Social Stress Test) on 24 male and 32 female college students’ affective and physiological
reactivity and their subsequent performance on a decision-making task (Iowa Gambling
Task). It was hypothesized that college students’ subjective mood state and physiological
arousal in response to an acute social stressor would predict risk taking on the IGT (Iowa
Gambling Task). The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is one of the most commonly used
decision-making tasks that has been employed with clinicians & non clinician population. It
is comprised of four virtual decks of cards (A, B, C, or D) presented on a computer screen.
On each of a total of 100 trials, participants select one card from one of the four decks and
win some play money, but every so often they will also lose some money. The aim is to win
as many play dollars as possible. The participants were randomly assigned to either a stress or
a no-stress control condition. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson,
1988) was used to assess affective reactions to a social stress task. The questionnaire is
comprised of a positive and a negative affect subscale, with ten items each rating present
mood states. In addition to the PANAS, all participants were asked to verbally rate subjective
stress at two time points during the stress induction. This was to ensure that the stress
induction relative to the control condition did indeed increase subjective feelings of stress.
The results of the study suggest that exposure to an acute social-evaluative stressor may
negatively impact decision making. Participants who underwent the TSST showed significant
stress-induced increases in physiological arousal (heart rate and SCL) as well as negative
affect (PANAS). These stress reactions were associated with selecting more cards from the
less advantageous decks on the IGT compared to participants in the control condition. On the
IGT, participants must learn which decks are more profitable in the long term by attending to
the proportion of wins and losses across trials. The presence of an acute stressor apparently
delays learning of these contingencies, which suggests that participants under stress may
show deficits in processing of feedback. Study has also shown that stress increases arousal
and negative emotions and adversely impacts decision-making, but differently for men and
women. It was speculate that under stress men rely more on automatic processing and thus
are biased toward immediate rewards, whereas women – up to a certain stress level – become
more conservative before their behaviour deteriorates. 

3. Decision-Making in Younger and Older Adults-

Decisions are a pervasive part of our lives. The importance and impact of our decisions may
only increase with age. Older adults often continue to work in prominent positions, and face
numerous important decisions such as which retirement options to select, how to spend their
life-savings, and how to best live out the remaining years of life. Likewise, younger adults
must choose which career path to take, which college to attend, and when to buy a house. It is
thus critical to understand how age affects decision making strategies. In this research it was
hypothesized that older adults engage in more model-based decision-making in two
experiments where older and younger adults perform either choice-dependent or choice-
independent tasks. In Experiment 1 there were 28 older adults (10 male, 15 female) & 28
younger adults (9 male, 19 female). Participants performed a choice independent task where
the reward values available for each option are arbitrarily based on the trial number and are
not impacted by previous behaviour. Participants completed a decision-making task where
the best strategy was to select the option that gave the highest reward on each trial. There
were a total of four options that participants selected from on each of 80 trials. Two options,
the ‘A’ decks, gave the same reward on each trial, and the other two options, the ‘B’ decks,
gave the same reward on each trial. The B decks gave higher rewards during the first 50
trials. After 50 trials there was an arbitrary (choice-independent) switch and the ‘A’ decks
gave the highest rewards on each trial. In Experiment 2 participants performed one of two
versions of a choice dependent task. In this task the rewards available for each option are
dependent on the number of times one option, the Increasing option, has been selected over
the previous ten trials. As its name implies, the Increasing option causes the reward values for
both options to increase on future trials. However, the other option, the Decreasing option,
gives a higher reward than the Increasing option on any given trial, but selecting this option
causes the rewards for both options to decrease on future trials. Thus the choice-dependent
task involves learning the trade-off between the short-term benefits of the Decreasing option
and the long-term benefits of the Increasing option, whereas no such trade-off must be
learned in the choice-independent task. According to the results obtained younger adults
performed better when rewards were choice-independent, while older adults performed better
when rewards were choice-dependent. Thus it shows difference in the way in which younger
and older adults approach decision-making situations.

4. Total Sleep Deprivation Impairs Decision Making -

The effect of sleep deprivation affects many cognitive processes and decision making is one
of them. Sleep deprivation alters decision making. To better understand the sometimes
catastrophic effects of sleep loss on naturalistic decision making, study investigated effects of
sleep deprivation on decision making in a reversal learning paradigm requiring acquisition
and updating of information based on outcome feedback. Subjects were randomized to a
sleep deprivation or control condition, with performance testing at baseline, after 2 nights of
total sleep deprivation (or rested control), and following 2 nights of recovery sleep. Subjects
performed a decision task involving initial learning of go and no go response sets followed by
unannounced reversal of contingencies, requiring use of outcome feedback for decisions. A
working memory scanning task and psychomotor vigilance test were also administered.
Thirteen subjects were randomized to a 62-h total sleep deprivation condition; the others
were controls. Unlike controls, sleep deprived subjects had difficulty with initial learning
of go and no go stimuli sets and had profound impairment adapting to reversal. Skin
conductance responses to outcome feedback were diminished, indicating blunted affective
reactions to feedback accompanying sleep deprivation. Working memory scanning
performance was not significantly affected by sleep deprivation. Although sleep deprived
subjects showed expected attention lapses, these could not account for impairments in
reversal learning decision making. Sleep deprivation is particularly problematic for decision
making involving uncertainty and unexpected change. Blunted reactions to feedback while
sleep deprived underlie failures to adapt to uncertainty and changing contingencies. Thus, an
error may register, but with diminished effect because of reduced affective valence of the
feedback or because the feedback is not cognitively bound with the choice. This has
important implications for understanding and managing sleep loss-induced cognitive
impairment in emergency response, disaster management, military operations, and other
dynamic real-world settings with uncertain outcomes and imperfect information.

5. Decision Making and Alcohol-

Much negative behaviour associated with alcohol consumption involve human decision
making. For example, an individual may decide whether to drive home after a night of heavy
drinking, endangering themselves and others. Alcohol is an addictive drug, and the
progression of addiction itself can have profound effects on individual responsiveness to
alcohol policies the acute effects of alcohol produce pharmacological changes that can alter
decision-making processes. Alcohol dependence is associated with deficits in decision
making and increased impulsiveness. Therefore, this study compared decision making in
abstinent alcohol-dependent people (“abstainers”) and matched healthy individuals
(“comparison group”) to determine whether impulsiveness or personality traits play a role in
decision making. A total of 87 individuals were enrolled in the study, 40 abstainers and 47
healthy individuals (comparison group). Impulsivity and impaired decision making are
interesting neurocognitive conceptualizations that may in part explain the development and
course of alcoholism. This study investigated the hypothesis that abstinent alcohol-dependent
people (“abstainers”) on average have a higher level of impulsivity and perform worse in
psychometric tests measuring decision-making tasks Iowa gambling task (IGT) than a
matched comparison group of healthy individuals. The study found that the total profit, profit
in the individual five blocks and the total IGT score were lower in the abstainers than in the
comparison group. The abstainers often chose the disadvantageous decks of the IGT,
indicating that they show impairments in predicting the long-term negative consequences of
their actions. While the comparison group were able to achieve gains in the IGT, the
abstainers more often selected cards from the disadvantageous decks. Thus, it was able to
confirm our hypothesis that abstinent alcohol-dependent people show deficits in decision
making. Study also confirmed that the abstainers show higher impulsiveness scores than
healthy individuals. Personality traits did not differ between the abstainers and comparison
group and did not explain variance in the IGT. Findings supported the hypothesis that healthy
individuals are better at making decisions than abstinent alcohol-dependent people and that
impulsiveness and other aspects such as quality of performance, processing speed and defiant
behaviour towards other people (suspicion) are associated with impaired decision making. 

REFERENCES:

1. I., Verma, D. R., & Bansal, A. (2019, December 25). Decision Making among Adolescents
in relation to Peer Pressure » The International Journal of Indian Psychology.
Decision Making Among Adolescents in Relation to Peer Pressure &Raquo; the International
Journal of Indian Psychology. Retrieved October 29, 2022, from -
https://ijip.in/articles/decision-making-among-adolescents-in-relation-to-peer-pressure/

2. Wemm, S. E., & Wulfert, E. (n.d.). Effects of Acute Stress on Decision Making - PMC.
PubMed Central (PMC). Retrieved October 29, 2022, from-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5346059/

3. Worthy, D. A., Gorlick, M. A., Pacheco, J. L., Schnyer, D. M., & Maddox, W. T. (2011,
September 29). With Age Comes Wisdom: Decision-Making in Younger and Older Adults -
PMC. PubMed Central (PMC). Retrieved October 29, 2022, from –

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3212636/
4. Whitney, P., Hinson, J. M., Jackson, M. L., & Van Dongen, H. P. (2015, May 1). Feedback
Blunting: Total Sleep Deprivation Impairs Decision Making that Requires Updating Based
on Feedback | SLEEP | Oxford Academic. OUP Academic. Retrieved October 29, 2022, from
- https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/38/5/745/2416953

5. Körner, N., Schmidt, P., & Soyka, M. (2015, June 17). Decision making and impulsiveness
in abstinent alcohol-dependent people and healthy individuals: a neuropsychological
examination - Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy. BioMed Central.
Retrieved October 29, 2022, from –

https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13011-015-0020-7#Sec1