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  3. Television

  4. How You Decide: The Science of Human Decision Making

TELEVISION

How You Decide: The Science of Human Decision Making

Series: Great Courses
4.4
(33)
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Episodes
24
Rating
TVPG
Year
2016
Language
English
Publisher
The Great Courses

About

Scientists have spent centuries trying to discern how we make choices. This course looks at the cutting-edge research revealed via the scientific method to understand and explain the human decision making process. You'll better understand the choices you face every day, the tools you can use to make the best decisions for your personal goals, and how to influence the decisions of others.

Related Subjects

  • Science
  • Educational

Episodes

1. Thinking Scientifically about Decisions

30m

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Have you ever wondered why people make the decisions they do? Using the metaphor of manufacturing, learn what science has revealed about human decision making: informational raw materials go in, the cognitive machinery processes, control mechanisms guide the machinery, and a decision is made.

2. The Two-System Model of Decision Making

30m

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What's going on in your cognitive machinery as you manufacture your decision? Delve into the two-system model of decision making: System 1 is your automatic and intuitive processor, your earlier system from an evolutionary perspective; and System 2 is the flexible, powerful serial processor that you think of as "you."

3. The Role of Heuristics in Decisions

30m

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Heuristics are the decision shortcuts that people use every day. While too imprecise to lead to optimal decisions, they are powerful tools that allow you to make appropriate decisions fairly easily. However, if you don't understand the limitations of heuristics, they can easily lead you astray from the truth into stereotyping and assumptions.

4. How Habits Make Decisions Easier

30m

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Habits are our immediate automatic responses - good and bad - to situations when we don't take the time to manufacture a purposeful decision. Decision science gives us the psychological framework within which to understand how habits form and are activated, and how best to change them when we want to.

5. Self-Regulation and Choice

30m

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Have you ever felt that your mind was so overworked you just could not make one more decision? Learn about the cognitive "fuel" needed for System 2 to rein in the automatic responses of System 1, and figure out how to recognize when you really are too resource-depleted to make your best decisions.

6. The Value Curve and Human Decisions

30m

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Prospect Theory reveals the ways in which our decision-making machinery values an item and why. Learn how to make better decisions by understanding appropriate reference points, sensitivity to changes in value, and the super-sensitivity we all experience when it comes to potential loss.

7. Emotional Influences on Decision Making

30m

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Have you ever driven a bit recklessly when you felt angry or frustrated? If so, you know that emotions affect our decisions. Recently, scientists have discovered that our emotions play an even larger role than previously thought; in fact, they are an integral and necessary part of our cognitive machinery.

8. How Goals Guide Our Decisions

30m

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Can you influence the cognitive machinery that manufactures your decisions? Absolutely. Learn why and how our goals motivate us, which goals inspire our greatest effort, and how best to motivate others to help them meet their own goals - whether it's your sales team at work or your children at home.

9. Reason-Based Choice

30m

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Even when manufacturing the seemingly simplest of decisions, our control panel can steer us in the wrong direction. Learn why our cognitive machinery often over-weights attributes, considers information that really has no bearing on the decision at hand, and sometimes makes short-term evaluations that won't serve us well later.

10. Mental Accounting as a Factor in Decisions

30m

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Mental accounting is a powerful decision-making tool we can employ to improve our lives. Learn how the process of partitioning objects and experiences in purposeful ways - everything from money and food to debt and social obligations - can increase happiness, decrease pain, and lead to better physical and emotional health.

Extended Details

  • SeriesGreat Courses
  • Closed CaptionsEnglish

Artists

Ryan HamiltonWriter
Ryan HamiltonActor