Walden University
Ali Farah
Joy Emole
Week 7 Assignment: PhD in Management: Mechanics of Individual and Group Decision
Making (MGMT – 8045-3)
Group E
Introduction
We make numerous decisions everyday and most of these decisions are made
from past experiences and biases. We need a systematic way of making decisions that
will be objective and not subjective to our biases and experiences. As the title of Hastie
and Dawes’ (2010) chapter 8 states “thinking rationally about uncertainty” it is very
important to think rationally to avoid making biased decisions in uncertain
circumstances. The authors encourage that we should take an outside view and to
make judgment on available information and follow the principles of probability theory.
It is essential to learn the basics of probability theory and statistics and to use them
when making important decisions (Hastie & Dawes, 2010). Lack of this essential
knowledge is what obliged us to make biased decisions when we were solving week 1’s
assignment problems.
Hastie and Dawes (2010) suggested that we should consider each problem as a
member of similar category of problems instead of treating it as a unique problem, and
decision makers should avoid taking an inside view. Understanding the situation before
making a judgment is also crucial to decision making (Hastie & Dawes, 2010). We were
not equipped with the understanding and knowledge about the tools and techniques of
probabilities and we made biased decisions based on our intuitions. We will use
probability trees to elaborate how biased our answers to questions #18, and #34 were
in week 1’s assignment.
As business leaders we cannot be making business decisions based on bias. It may be
tempting to second-guess statistics and try to smuggle in our bias, but we must resist
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that and let the external factors guide us in our decision. This way decision-making can
be scientific and more reproducible. Rykrsmith (2013, para, 2) argues that there are five
biases in decision making:

We feel pressure to take action

We are optimistic about the future

We dismiss the possibility of negative events

We are overconfident in our ability to influence events

We disregard the impact of chance occurrences.
We made biased decisions about the solution of problems #2, #4, #6, and #10. The
best way we know to think systematically about judgment is to learn the fundamentals
of probability theory and statistics (Hastie & Dawes, 2010). When we did week 1’s
assignment we were under pressure to answer the questions without collecting
information or asking questions.
Lain McGilchrist, a psychiatrist, had a Ted Talk on “The divided brain”. He
explores some of the misconceptions about the nature of reasoning, the nature of
intuition, the part they play in the creative process, and their impact on the divided
nature of the brain. Why is the brain divided? The left and right hemispheres each have
a distinct take on the world and the right hemisphere stands aloof from it (McGilchrist,
2011). This affects our understanding not just of language, reason, music and time, but
also of all living things such as our bodies, ourselves and the world in which we live. The
left hemisphere has become so dominant that we are in danger of forgetting everything
that makes us human.
The bottom line from his Ted Talk is that the right brain holds the nonconceptual knowledge that is the raw data for all the conceptual knowledge produced
by the left brain. The left hemisphere is focused on we already know and do not make
rational thinking. When we reason we use both left and right hemisphere for reason and
that is when we make rational decisions. For this assignment, we will look at the 6
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above mentioned problems from week 1’s assignment “let us make decisions”
(Laureate, 2014d).
Problem #2: Answer – Go home and not ski (Joy’s answer)
When I made plans to go ski, I was using my right brain. When I drove to the ski
resort, I used my left brain to reason to drive. I found out that the weather conditions
were terrible and the lift not working, my left brain was telling us to ski so I don’t lose
my money while my right brain was telling me about the consequences of the weather
condition. I had biases because I don’t do well in windy and cold weather. I decided to
listen to my right brain and go home. This is how I arrived at this decision and answer
above.
Problem #6: Answer – More 80 years old (Joy’s answer)
I have read about Gandhi and I have seen pictures of Gandhi and I know he was
more than 50 years at his death. This is what I know already and this is my left brain
telling me what I already know.
Problem #6: Answer – Murder (Joy’s answer)
I have not thought about this question before and I do not have the facts which
one is more. I chose murder because of what I hear, see and read in the media.
I was already biased by what I read and see in the media and I didn’t use my left or right
brain. I was biased and I picked “Murder”
Problem #4: Answer – Lower (Joy’s answer)
Less than 65 countries make up the continent of Africa. There will not be more
than 65 African counties in the U. N. in 1972. I used my right brain in this answer. From
my right brain I didn’t know how many African countries that where in the UN in 1972,
but from my left brain I know that countries in the continent of Africa is not up to 65
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Problem #18: Answer - Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement
(Ali’s answer
I based my answer on the past activities of Linda, which I imaged that she could
be an activist fighting for women’s rights. However, that is a biased decision because it
lacks evidence and also lacks rationality as I didn’t have enough information and I did
not look into the probability of whether Linda can be a feminist or not. After reading
chapter 8 of Hastie and Dawes (2010) and carefully studying the probability tree and the
Venn diagram it became obvious to me that the probability of Linda been a feminist
bank teller is very low. I reconstructed the probability tree and the Venn diagram to
show that my decision was biased.
Problem #34: Answer - 70% (Ali’s answer).
My answer was biased as I guessed the answer. First, I did not assume a sample
on which to base my assumptions. Second, I did not know how to calculate probabilities
in a professional manner. After reading chapter 8, it was interesting to find out that 95
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out of 100 physicians answered 75% when the same question was asked (Hastie &
Dawes, 2010). I reconstructed the probability tree of the problem and Baye’s theorem
calculations, which lay down that the probability that a woman in this age bracket who
tests positive has breast cancer is .07476 or approximately 7.5%.
Conclusion
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References
Hastie, R., & Dawes, R. M. (2010). Rational choice in an uncertain world (2nd ed.).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
McGilchrist, I. (2011). The divided brain [Video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014d). Let’s make decisions! [Multimedia
file].Baltimore, MD: Author.
Rykrsmith, E. (2013, June 7). 5 biases in decision making – Part 2. [QuickBase Blog].
Retrieved from http://quickbase.intuit.com/blog/5-biases-in-decision-makingpart-2
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