THINKING AND REASONING IN HUMAN DECISION MAKING: THE METHOD OF ARGUMENT AND HEURISTIC ANALYSIS

Authors: Peter A. Facione and Noreen C. Facione, 2008

If your work does not require a deep understanding of how human beings make decisions, and how those decisions can be predicted and influenced, then this book is not for you.

From theory to illustrative case studies, this groundbreaking volume describes a new methodology for explaining and predicting human decision making. The method of argument and heuristic analysis, based on the latest scientific findings from studies of human reasoning, combines both quantitative and qualitative research designs. Use of this method takes the study of human reasoning to a deep and authentic level. The decision mapping techniques presented in this volume enable one to display visually the flow of a reasoning process and to examine the influence of the reasons and heuristics which shape human decision-making.

This new volume emerges from decades of research into human decision making. It offers a scientifically grounded and very widely applicable methodology for explaining and predicting human decisions. The method accounts for the reasons actually used by decision makers to make naturalistic decisions. This approach provides objective methods for evaluating the logical strength and appropriate reliance on thinking heuristics. The focus is on high risk, time limited judgments made under conditions of uncertainty. Using this new approach one can explain unwarranted confidence in poor reasoning and persistence in defending poor judgments when there is ample evidence to the contrary.

Using this approach, professionals and scholars can map human decisions in leadership, business, military, health care, and human interpersonal situations. And they can craft ways of predicting and addressing errors through interventions designed to respect and build upon those elements in human thinking and reasoning which can become the basis for better judgments in all those contexts.

---$27.95--- Paperbound

Published by The California Academic Press LLC ©2007 Peter A and Noreen C Facione

ISBN (13 digit) 978-1891557-58-3
ISBN (10 digit) 1-891557-58-0