This document discusses different types of decision making. There are two main types: involuntary decision making, which occurs out of habit or repetition, and voluntary decision making, where one examines all available information and alternatives. Voluntary decision making can be influenced by credible sources, authority figures, peers, groupthink, and interpersonal needs for affection, inclusion and control. The document emphasizes that critical thinkers should evaluate both the decision making process and outcomes when assessing a decision.

1. Decision Making
BY
Bryan Duda

2. Decision Making
Defined
A choice that you make
about something after
thinking about it : the result
of deciding

3. Making Decisions
Humans make decisions
in two ways
1. Involuntary
2. Voluntary

4. Involuntary Decision
Making Defined
Decision making made out of
habit, reflex, or repetition. It is a
learned pattern of acting,
thinking, or feeling.

5. Involuntary Decision Making
Hidden persuaders influence some of are
involuntary decision making. There are four
distant methods of “hidden” persuasion:
1. Visual Stimuli
2. Accelerated speech
3. Embedded images in print advertisement
4. Suggestiveness that would not normally be
seen at first glance.

6. Voluntary Decision making Defined
This method of decision making allows a
person to examine all of the information
available, all of the decision alternatives
known, and all of the decision
consequences before he or she freely
selects one of the alternatives. This means
the decision-maker is an active participant
in the process of making a decision.

7. Voluntary Decision Making
When making a voluntary decision, a person can
be influenced by:
• Credible sources
• Authority figures
• Ones peers
• Group thinking
• The interpersonal needs for affection inclusion
and control

8. Credible Sources
• People we trust and look to for help,
guidance or direction in making a
decision.
• May have no special knowledge or
insight, but we tend to believe what they
have to say.
• This may include good friends, members
of our family, or other trustworthy
people

9. Authority Figures
• When confronted with the need to make a
critical decision, We often turn to those
people we consider to be authority figures for
help.
• When working with those they consider and
authority figure, people tend to make
decision's based on what they think that
authority figure would want them to do.

10. Peer Influence
• Exists when a person is motivated to make a
decision based primarily on the influence of
those he or she wants to be identified with
and be accepted by.
• Peer influence occurs when an individual
voluntarily seeks the support or approval or
goodwill of others as the basis for making a
decision.

11. Groupthink
• Groupthink occurs when individuals within a
group desire cohesiveness and harmony
above the critical evaluation of the group's
decisions.
• In such environments, people voluntarily give
up conflicting views to preserve the family's
harmony and togetherness.

12. Interpersonal Needs
There are three essential
interpersonal needs:
1. The need for affection
2. The need for inclusion
3. The need for control

13. The Need For Affection
Is usually considered the first interpersonal need
to appear in our lives. This is the need to be
loved and, in turn, to give love.

14. The Need For Inclusion
• Differs from that of intimacy because it can be
fulfilled by a group. The need for inclusion is
the needs to be part of a group or origination.

15. The Need For Control
• Is the need to exert some real power or
influence over decision-making in a
relationship. This need is met when a person
feels that he or she is given responsibility for
the outcome of a decision in a relation ship.

16. How Should Critical Thinkers evaluate
decision making?
• Critical thinkers need to examine not only the
outcome of a decision but the process used to
make that decision. Only by looking at both
can we determine why the decision succeed
or failed in obtaining its desired outcome.

17. Source
Marteney, Jim, and Jack Sterk. Communicating
Critical Thinking. Agoura Hills, CA: Leadership
Communication, 1990. Print.