Intense Preferences, Strong Beliefs and Democratic Decision-Making

1988 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Jones
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Processes ◽  
Group Activity ◽  
Pressure Group ◽  
Vote Trading ◽  
The Way

Some decisions require individuals to make judgements rather than to express preferences. Some conflicts of preference arise from different beliefs about the efficacy or propriety of a policy rather than from different wants. Should the ‘intensity’ with which a judgement is made, or a belief is held, figure in decisionmaking in the way that it should ideally influence decisions concerning wants? This article questions the relevance of intensity to matters of judgement and examines how far decision processes that are sensitive to different intensities of preference, such as pressure group activity, vote trading and point voting, are open to criticism for failing to discriminate between intense wants and strong beliefs.

Clinical Judgment Revisited

1999 ◽  
Vol 38 (04/05) ◽  
pp. 279-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. L. Weed
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
Clinical Judgment ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Patient Records ◽  
Practice Of Medicine ◽  
The Way

AbstractIt is widely recognised that accessing and processing medical information in libraries and patient records is a burden beyond the capacities of the physician’s unaided mind in the conditions of medical practice. Physicians are quite capable of tremendous intellectual feats but cannot possibly do it all. The way ahead requires the development of a framework in which the brilliant pieces of understanding are routinely assembled into a working unit of social machinery that is coherent and as error free as possible – a challenge in which we ourselves are among the working parts to be organized and brought under control.Such a framework of intellectual rigor and discipline in the practice of medicine can only be achieved if knowledge is embedded in tools; the system requiring the routine use of those tools in all decision making by both providers and patients.

Patients’ practices for taking the initiative in decision-making in outpatient psychiatric consultations

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuya Kushida ◽  
Takeshi Hiramoto ◽  
Yuriko Yamakawa
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Treatment Decision ◽  
Close Inspection ◽  
Important Resource ◽  
Treatment Decision Making ◽  
The Way

In spite of increasing advocacy for patients’ participation in psychiatric decision-making, there has been little research on how patients actually participate in decision-making in psychiatric consultations. This study explores how patients take the initiative in decision-making over treatment in outpatient psychiatric consultations in Japan. Using the methodology of conversation analysis, we analyze 85 video-recorded ongoing consultations and find that patients select between two practices for taking the initiative in decision-making: making explicit requests for a treatment and displaying interest in a treatment without explicitly requesting it. A close inspection of transcribed interaction reveals that patients make explicit requests under the circumstances where they believe the candidate treatment is appropriate for their condition, whereas they merely display interest in a treatment when they are not certain about its appropriateness. By fitting practices to take the initiative in decision-making with the way they describe their current condition, patients are optimally managing their desire for particular treatments and the validity of their initiative actions. In conclusion, we argue that the orderly use of the two practices is one important resource for patients’ participation in treatment decision-making.

Rangda and the Goddess Durga in Bali

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-77
Author(s):  
Sarah Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
The Witch ◽  
Purity And Impurity ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Negative Attributes ◽  
The Way

This article examines Rangda and her role as a chthonic and mythological figure in Bali, particularly the way in which Rangda’s identity has intertwined with that of the Hindu goddess Durga— slayer of buffalo demons and other creatures that cannot be bested by Shiva or other male Hindu gods. Images and stories about Durga in Bali are significantly different from those found in Hindu contexts in India. Although she retains the strong-willed independence and decision-making capabilities prominently associated with Durga in India, in Bali the goddess Durga is primarily associated with violent and negative attributes as well as looks and behaviours that are more usually associated with Kali in India. The reconstruction of Durga in Bali, in particular the integration of Durga with the figure of the witch Rangda, reflects the local importance of the dynamic relationship between good and bad, positive and negative forces in Bali. I suggest that Balinese representations of Rangda and Durga reveal a flux and transformation between good and evil, not simply one side of a balanced binary opposition. Transformation—here defined as the persistent movement between ritual purity and impurity—is a key element in the localization of the goddess Durga in Bali.

The moral and political economy of suicide prevention

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110011
Author(s):  
Scott J Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Suicide Prevention ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
The Way

Suicide prevention occurs within a web of social, moral, and political relations that are acknowledged, yet rarely made explicit. In this work, I analyse these interrelations using concepts of moral and political economy to demonstrate how moral norms and values interconnect with political and economic systems to inform the way suicide prevention is structured, legitimated, and enacted. Suicide prevention is replete with ideologies of individualism, risk, and economic rationalism that translate into a specific set of social practices. These bring a number of ethical, procedural, and distributive considerations to the fore. Closer attention to these issues is needed to reflect the moral and political contexts in which decision-making about suicide prevention occurs, and the implications of these decisions for policy, practice, and for those whose lives they impact.

The Influence of Clinical Supervision on Nurses’ Moral Decision Making

2000 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingela Berggren ◽  
Elisabeth Severinsson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Registered Nurses ◽  
Clinical Supervision ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Transformative Process ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Structural Aspects ◽  
The Way

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of clinical supervision on nurse’ moral decision making. The sample consisted of 15 registered nurses who took part in clinical supervision sessions. Data were obtained from interviews and analysed by a hermeneutic transformative process. The hermeneutic interpretation revealed four themes: increased self-assurance, an increased ability to support the patient, an increased ability to be in a relationship with the patient, and an increased ability to take responsibility. In conclusion, it seems that clinical supervision enhances nurse’ ability to provide care on the basis of their decision making. However, the qualitative and structural aspects of clinical supervision have to be investigated further in order to develop professional insight into the way that nurses think and react.

scholarly journals Hierarchical decision processes that operate over distinct timescales underlie choice and changes in strategy

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (31) ◽  
pp. E4531-E4540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Braden A. Purcell ◽  
Roozbeh Kiani
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Decision Processes ◽  
Response Strategy ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Decision Strategy ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
Hierarchical Decision ◽  
The Right ◽  
High Level

Decision-making in a natural environment depends on a hierarchy of interacting decision processes. A high-level strategy guides ongoing choices, and the outcomes of those choices determine whether or not the strategy should change. When the right decision strategy is uncertain, as in most natural settings, feedback becomes ambiguous because negative outcomes may be due to limited information or bad strategy. Disambiguating the cause of feedback requires active inference and is key to updating the strategy. We hypothesize that the expected accuracy of a choice plays a crucial rule in this inference, and setting the strategy depends on integration of outcome and expectations across choices. We test this hypothesis with a task in which subjects report the net direction of random dot kinematograms with varying difficulty while the correct stimulus−response association undergoes invisible and unpredictable switches every few trials. We show that subjects treat negative feedback as evidence for a switch but weigh it with their expected accuracy. Subjects accumulate switch evidence (in units of log-likelihood ratio) across trials and update their response strategy when accumulated evidence reaches a bound. A computational framework based on these principles quantitatively explains all aspects of the behavior, providing a plausible neural mechanism for the implementation of hierarchical multiscale decision processes. We suggest that a similar neural computation—bounded accumulation of evidence—underlies both the choice and switches in the strategy that govern the choice, and that expected accuracy of a choice represents a key link between the levels of the decision-making hierarchy.

Markov decision processes for integrating life cycle dynamics into fab-level decision making

1999 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 4852-4857
Author(s):  
Shalabh Bhatnagar ◽  
Michael C. Fu ◽  
Steven I. Marcus ◽  
Ying He
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Markov Decision Processes ◽  
Decision Processes ◽  
Markov Decision

De structuur van de besluitvorming in de Raad van de Europese Unie

Res Publica ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 36 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 381-398
Author(s):  
Jan Beyers
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Functional Approach ◽  
Council Decision ◽  
Working Groups ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

In spite of its importance in European Union decision making, research on the functioning of the Council is scarce (Wessels, 1991). Based on empirical findings this article gives some new insights in the way Council decision making is institutionalized. The first part focusses on the characteristics of Council working groups and the different positions of actors in the decision making network. Our findings confirm the definition of the Council as a highly bureaucratized institution. Interesting is that the diversity of tasks of the different actors(working groups, Coreper, CSA etc.) strengthens the impact of national administrations in Council decision making. The second part explores the reasons for this impact. This article adds to the functional approach, which over-emphasizes the adaptive character of the Council, the perception of the Council as an intergovernmental component in a supranational system.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document