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Decision-making Abilities (decision-making + ability)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

How Do You Assess a Manager's Decision-Making Abilities?

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT, Issue 2 2000
The Use of Situational Inventories
Decision-making capabilities are absolutely crucial to a manager. Unfortunately, existing methods of assessing managers in this area for selection and development purposes (in-tray exercises, situational interviews, ability tests, etc.) leave a lot to be desired. This article focuses on an alternative for assessing managerial decision making , the situational inventory , and presents research findings and information on practical applications. Detailed findings are also presented for ,Scenarios', the UK's first published situational measure of managerial judgement. Situational inventories work by presenting participants with realistic but difficult real-life management scenarios. Each scenario is accompanied by a number of possible responses which participants rate for effectiveness in dealing with the scenario. Participants' ratings are then scored against a set of ideal answers, producing an assessment of current decision-making ability. Decision-making ability can be developed in individuals, making feedback invaluable to participants. Evidence that has been accumulating in the United States and the UK for at least 15 years is presented to support the general situational inventory approach. Additionally, specific evidence is presented for ,Scenarios'. It was found to correlate significantly with a number of managerial performance and responsibility indicators while appearing to be largely separate from existing psychometric (ability and personality) tests. [source]

Decision-making in Parkinson's disease patients with and without pathological gambling

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY, Issue 1 2010
M. Rossi
Background and purpose:, Pathological gambling (PG) in Parkinson's disease (PD) is a frequent impulse control disorder associated mainly with dopamine replacement therapy. As impairments in decision-making were described independently in PG and PD, the objective of this study was to assess decision-making processes in PD patients with and without PG. Methods:, Seven PD patients with PG and 13 age, sex, education and disease severity matched PD patients without gambling behavior were enrolled in the study. All patients were assessed with a comprehensive neuropsychiatric and cognitive evaluation, including tasks used to assess decision-making abilities under ambiguous or risky situations, like the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), the Game of Dice Task and the Investment Task. Results:, Compared to PD patients without gambling behavior, those with PG obtained poorer scores in the IGT and in a rating scale of social behavior, but not in other decision-making and cognitive tasks. Conclusions:, Low performance in decision-making under ambiguity and abnormal social behavior distinguished PD patients with PG from those without this disorder. Dopamine replacement therapy may induce dysfunction of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and amygdala-ventral striatum system, thus increasing the risk for developing PG. [source]

The effects of one night of sleep deprivation on known-risk and ambiguous-risk decisions

JOURNAL OF SLEEP RESEARCH, Issue 3 2007
BENJAMIN S. MCKENNA
Summary Sleep deprivation has been shown to alter decision-making abilities. The majority of research has utilized fairly complex tasks with the goal of emulating 'real-life' scenarios. Here, we use a Lottery Choice Task (LCT) which assesses risk and ambiguity preference for both decisions involving potential gains and those involving potential losses. We hypothesized that one night of sleep deprivation would make subjects more risk seeking in both gains and losses. Both a control group and an experimental group took the LCT on two consecutive days, with an intervening night of either sleep or sleep deprivation. The control group demonstrated that there was no effect of repeated administration of the LCT. For the experimental group, results showed significant interactions of night (normal sleep versus total sleep deprivation, TSD) by frame (gains versus losses), which demonstrate that following as little as 23 h of TSD, the prototypical response to decisions involving risk is altered. Following TSD, subjects were willing to take more risk than they ordinarily would when they were considering a gain, but less risk than they ordinarily would when they were considering a loss. For ambiguity preferences, there seems to be no direct effect of TSD. These findings suggest that, overall, risk preference is moderated by TSD, but whether an individual is willing to take more or less risk than when well-rested depends on whether the decision is framed in terms of gains or losses. [source]

Paramedic and Emergency Medical Technicians Views on Opportunities and Challenges When Forgoing and Halting Resuscitation in the Field

ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 6 2009
Corita R. Grudzen MD
Abstract Objectives:, The objective was to assess paramedic and emergency medical technicians (EMT) perspectives and decision-making after a policy change that allows forgoing or halting resuscitation in prehospital atraumatic cardiac arrest. Methods:, Five semistructured focus groups were conducted with 34 paramedics and 2 EMTs from emergency medical services (EMS) agencies within Los Angeles County (LAC), 6 months after a policy change that allowed paramedics to forgo or halt resuscitation in the field under certain circumstances. Results:, Participants had an overwhelmingly positive view of the policy; felt it empowered their decision-making abilities; and thought the benefits to patients, family, EMS, and the public outweighed the risks. Except under certain circumstances, such as when the body was in public view or when family members did not appear emotionally prepared to have the body left on scene, they felt the policy improved care. Assuming that certain patient characteristics were present, decisions by paramedics about implementing the policy in the field involve many factors, including knowledge and comfort with the new policy, family characteristics (e.g., agreement), and logistics regarding the place of arrest (e.g., size of space). Paramedic and EMT experiences with and attitudes toward forgoing resuscitation, as well as group dynamics among EMS leadership, providers, police, and ED staff, also play a role. Conclusions:, Participants view the ability to forgo or halt resuscitation in the field as empowering and do not believe it presents harm to patients or families under most circumstances. Factors other than patient clinical characteristics, such as knowledge and attitudes toward the policy, family emotional preparedness, and location of arrest, affect whether paramedics will implement it. [source]

How Do You Assess a Manager's Decision-Making Abilities?

Core competencies and the prevention of adolescent substance use

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD & ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, Issue 122 2008
Tamara M. Haegerich
Adolescence is a developmental period during which youth are at increased risk for using substances. An empirical focus on core competencies illustrates that youth are less likely to use substances when they have a positive future orientation, a belief in the ability to resist substances, emotional and behavioral control, sound decision-making ability, a belief that substance use is wrong, and a strong bond to prosocial peers and family. Such etiological research is beginning to provide a strong foundation for successful competence-building prevention programs. Focusing on the developmental-ecological context of adolescent substance use will expedite advances in prevention. [source]