Decision Analysis: Blog 1

Decision Analysis: Blog 1: "Read this text about Decision Making Heuristics (http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/180/3/decision-making-factors-that-influence-decision-..." Sidi Bouzid
02-07-2010



Heuristics is a description for experince-based techniques that help in

problem solving, learning, and discovery. A heursitic method is used to come to a

solution rapidly that is hoped to be close to the best possible answer. In other

words it is the framework of taking a decision. Heuristics is the consideration of

the elements needed to take a decision. There are many kinds of heuristics, but

three are important and commonly used; representative, availability, and

anchoring-and-adjustment.

Representative heuristics is a rule where people judge the probability or

frequency of an educated guess by considering how much the hypothesis

resembles information that is already given. Although very useful, heuristic

representativeness tends to be biased toward the belief that causes and effects

will resemble one another, examples include both the belief that emotionally

relevant events ought to have emotionally relevant causes. An example of this, is

when i want to buy a product like a Mac , I buy it because i heard form many

people before that it is a reliable computer. The second most common heuristic

is availability, availability heuristic is when people predict the frequency of

an event, or a proportion within a population, based on how easily an

example can be brought to mind. For example, when i go to a restaurant i

got used to ordering coke because its always available and easily accessible

which makes me choose it for other soft drinks. Last but not east is the

anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic, describes the common human tendency to

rely too heavily, or anchor, on one trait or piece of information when making

decisions. For example, when i want to buy a car regardless of its other positive

traits i buy it for speed. Hence, speed is my anchor in this situation. According to

the text people regret decisions because of the number of options that were

available to them. Sagi and Freiland also concluded that people feel remorse

because they believe they could have made a better choice. Furthermore, regret

is also depicted when individuals revisit the other available options and

considering what satisfaction the other option would have brought them.

Personally, in my life i had to take many decisions one of the decsions i had to

make was wether i wanted to live alone at a young age or not. In the beginning i

thought it was a good idea and was very exited about it. I believed i needed to

live alone to be productive. However when i started living alone and had to do

everything alone i regreted. I thought that i made the wrong decision at the

wrong time.