Psychological Investigations of Competence in Decision Making

The premise of this book is that many of the experiences we encounter are novel, infrequent in our experience, or variable with respect to action to be taken. Others require decisions to be made in the face of ambiguous or incomplete information. Time pressure is frequently tight and penalties for failure are severe. Examples of such situations include investing in markets, controlling industrial accidents, and detecting fraud. These are environments that defy a definition of optimal performance. The authors refer to domains without criteria for optimal performance as ‘competency-based’ and we describe the behaviour of individuals who work in them by the term ‘competence’. The chapters explore the proposition that metacognitive processes - thinking about the kind of thinking that a task requires - give structure to otherwise ill-structured tasks and is a fundamental enabler of competence at decision making. Such metacognition facilitates performance.

• Introduces three task-general sources of competent decision making in a wide variety of professional domains • Relevant to both judgment/decision researchers and to cognitive/social scientists interested in decision behavior. Useful to graduate students as well as established researchers • Contributions from some of the biggest names in the field as well as some of the brightest rising stars

Introduction Kip Smith, James Shanteau and Paul Johnson; Part I. Metacognition - Self: 1. The conversion decision in minimally invasive surgery: knowing your limits and limiting your risks Cynthia Dominguez, John Flach, Patricia Lake, Daniel McKellar and Margaret Dunn; 2. Competence in weather forecasting Rebecca Pliske, Beth Crandall and Gary Klein; Part II. Metacognition - Others: 3. Managing Risk in Social Exchange Stefano Grazioli, Kip Smith and Paul Johnson; 4. Emergency decision making Jan Skriver, Rhona Flin and Lynne Martin; 5. Designing for competence Patricia Jones; Part III. Enablers of Competence: 6. Argumentation and decisions David Hardman and Peter Ayton; 7. Representation of uncertainty and change: three case studies with experts Elke Kurz, Gerd Gigerenzer and Ulrich Hoffrage; 8. The vise of consensus and the virtue of consistency David Weiss and James Shanteau.

\' … this book brings together an interesting and useful collection of modern decision making research … Given the variety of ideas presented, this book may be useful for introducing applied decision making topics to graduate students. Taken together, this book serves its purpose of tying a variety of applied decision making situations whit theory and empirical findings, and should provide a useful resource for anyone exploring competent decision making in ill-defined, real-world situations.\' Applied Cognitive Psychology