Understanding and Improving Decision Making

Catalog description

Our lives are built upon countless decisions, some small (What am I going to wear to work?) and some very consequential (Should I accept this job offer?). This course will offer a broad view of the science of decision making, incorporating perspectives from research in behavioral science and economics, social psychology, and organizational behavior. Critically, course topics will be discussed in the context of workplace decisions, evaluations, and outcomes. For instance, we will discuss how the use of mental shortcuts in organizational evaluations like hiring decisions can foster bias and discrimination, why entrepreneurs seem more risk-tolerant than middle managers, and the routes to success and failure when brainstorming in teams. Broadly, students will learn about rational models of decision making and the reasons why our decisions often stray from these models. Most importantly, students will leave the class with a toolkit to avoid errors and biases in their own decisions.