Judgment in decision making and evidence-based management (JUDMEM)

Contents

While today’s companies and individuals have access to more and more data, most decisions are taken on limited and imperfect information. Consequently, various fields require their practitioners to have an in-depth understanding of judgment and decision-making. Examples include the development of user interfaces and marketing strategies, hiring decisions, crisis intervention, as well as policy-making in education, healthcare, or social services. This course examines how people make choices, judge situations, probabilities, and decision options. The focus is on the contrast between rational decision-making, and the psychological principles that guide decision behavior. The course reviews common heuristics, cognitive errors and systematic biases that help us to make reasonable and accurate decisions in some areas, but may crucially misguide us in others. We will develop tools to detect and mitigate systematic cognitive biases and we will identify strategies that tap into these insights for improved decision-making in diverse real-world contexts, both in simple everyday-life situations and complex managerial decision environments.