Section 15B--Cognitive processes Flashcards
Which cognitive bias is the tendency to place too much emphasis on the most immediate examples to come to mind? (vivid, unusual, emorionally charged)
Availability bias
Which cognitive bias is the tendence to jump to conclusions about the relationship between two variables when no relationship exists?
Illusory bias
Which theory is commonly recognized as the act of framing a situation as a potential gain that causes decision-makers to act differently than when framing the same situation as a potential loss?
Prospect theory
Which theory helps explain our tendencey to escalate commitment based on sunk costs instead of making rational evaluations? Based on sunk cost arguments, leaders often take on more risk, committing additional resources to avoid losses even when teh chances of success are low.
Prospect theory
NOTE - in gambling, this is when gamblers think their chances of winning go up with each successive loss
What acts to limit the information we take in, our willingness to fairly and unbiasedly assess information, and utilmately restrict the solution sets we create?
The initial frameworks we establish when confronting change
When does reasoning by analogy occur?
When we assess a situation and match it to similar experiences we have previously encountered
When can intuition complement a decision maker?
When used in conjunction with the evaluation of a whole series of alternatives and not solely based on objective analysis
What must Airmen who are engaged in group decision making do?
Consciously structure the process to encourage critical thinking to prevent momentum from simply leading the group toward conformity
What are four considerations when establishing groups for decision-making?
Diversity: representation from many different disciplines, perspectives, and areas of expertise
Decentralized location: for discussions
Individual Judgments: Effectively aggregate all of them
Independent members: meaning not subordinate to one another
What are two hindrances to groups?
Contradictory behaviors, such as withholding information for personal reasons or filtering ifnormation to accomodate a personal bias
Selectively presenting information up the chain of command to inadvertently affect the groups efforts
What occurs when tremendous pressures within the team demand conformity and express a strong desire for unanimity at the expense of true critical thinking?
Groupthink
What is an Airman reducing when defined roles are given to members of the decision-making team for aspects of the analysis process and holding them accountable for representing these perspectives within the group?
Groupthink
What is important when providing constructive criticism?
Honesty
Which organizational culture has an environment where dissenters tend to stay silent, becoming a tacit endorsement of the proposal without the benegit of analysis and debate?
Culture of yes
What organizational culture tends to develop in organizations facing highly ambiguous situations or in organizations where competing sections/leaders practice conflict avoidance as opposed to open anlysis and debate?
Culture of maybe
When final decisions are made, what process allows Airmen to rally around the designated way ahead with confidence that the decision-maker considered all aspects before finalizing which course of action to pursue?
Fair processes
What occurs when the decision process is perceived to be in line with an organization’s socially accepted norms and desired behaviors?
Procedural legitimacy
What theory rests upon the assumption that in any highly complex high-risk organizational structure, decision failures are unavoidable?
Normal accident theory
What organizational system, having tight interactions, can magnify the normal accidents into system-wide failure - the failure of one component has unanticipated effects on many subsystems
Coupled (Interdependent)
What is a leader attempting to reduce when she/he empowers front-line workers and flattens hierarchies to reduce information filtering?
Practical drift
What are leaders attempting to reduce by avoiding “band-aid” approaches to small problems by fixing the root cuase across the system and/or conducting careful after-action revies focused on process improvement?
Practical drift
