Dec 17 2012 We all make decisions every day. I started out my
day deciding what to wear, following by a decision of what to
write about for this morning’s blog post. Most decisions are
small and likely have insignificant consequences, but even small
decisions can have a large cumulative effect. Some decisions are
huge and can have dramatic effects on the course of our lives or
the lives of others. Studying human decision-making, therefore,
seems to be a useful endeavor, one likely to have implications
for critical thinking. The current dominant model of decision
making is the so-called dual-process approach. Decision-making
is seen as coming in two flavors: intuitive-affective, or system
I, decision-making is based upon our “gut-feelings”, while
analytical system II processing is based upon careful analysis.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and researchers
are busy trying to sort out which approach is superior in which
circumstances. Intuitive decision-making has the advantage of
being quick. W