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300. Personal Decision Making
Final
Examination
A satisfactory answer to each
question is given in blue italics, along with the percentage of students who
most recently received perfect scores on that question.
1. Name the three secrets of wise decision making, and indicate the warning signs and correctives associated with each. 15 points
|
Name of “Secret” |
Warning Signs |
Correctives |
|
The Courage to be
Rational (100%) |
Emotionality,
procrastinating, shifting responsibility, bolstering a favored alternative
(60%) |
Process orientation,
hope, observer perspective (37%) |
|
Creativity (97%) |
No ideas or the same
ideas over and over again (51%) |
Stimulus variation +
force fit (57%) |
|
Balanced Judgment (94%) |
Feeling overwhelmed,
vacillation, oversimplification (37%) |
External memory,
heuristics, decomposition (26%) |
2. Name two techniques for varying stimuli in order to think creatively specifically about values, two specifically for alternatives, and two that are more general. 6 points
|
To think of: |
Vary stimuli in this way |
|
Values |
Analysis of stakeholders Analysis of alternatives Value tree (74%) |
|
Alternatives |
Analysis of values Analyses of causes Analysis of resources
(46%) |
|
General |
Observation Creative Conversation Taking a break (63%) |
3. For each of the criteria for a value set, provide a one-sentence question to test against that criterion. 6 points
|
Criterion |
Test (one-sentence question) |
|
Completeness |
If all my alternatives
were alike with respect to all the values currently in my value set, would
I be willing to toss a coin to choose among them?
(43%) |
|
Relevance |
Do the alternatives
differ substantially with respect to each value?
(60%) |
|
Non-redundancy |
Do any of the values
overlap in meaning? (60%) |
|
Testability/Measurability |
Are all my values
specified with sufficient clarity that someone else could fill in my fact
table? (66%) |
|
Meaningfulness |
Do my measures reflect
what is really important to me about the values they measure?
(37%) |
|
Value Independence |
Can I assign +s and -s
(ordinal independence) and 1-to-10 ratings (interval independence) to each
value without having to think about the other values?
(34%) |
4. Draw a line through each alternative that is dominated.
3
points (51%)
|
|
Value A |
Value B |
Value C |
Value D |
Value E |
|
|
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
- |
|
Alternative 2 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
+ |
|
Alternative 3 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
0 |
5. Circle
the cell in the above table that you would focus on in order to try to create an
alternative that dominates all others. 3
points (54%)
6. Which of
the four Total Values is most likely to be incorrect? (Hint: This
doesn’t require any calculation.) 3
points (74%)
|
|
Value A |
Value B |
Value C |
Value D |
Total Value |
|
|
0.4 |
0.3 |
0.2 |
0.1 |
1.0 |
|
Alternative 1 |
1 |
2 |
10 |
3 |
3.3 |
|
Alternative 2 |
10 |
10 |
1 |
3 |
7.5 |
|
Alternative 3 |
10 |
8 |
7 |
1 |
11.4 |
|
Alternative 4 |
7 |
1 |
5 |
10 |
5.1 |
7. Circle
the two numbers out of the six in the ranges 3-7, 1-5, and 6-8 that would be the
most important ones to test in a sensitivity analysis. 4 points (43%)
|
|
0.5 |
0.2 |
0.2 |
0.1 |
|
|
Alternative 1 |
10 |
3-7 |
1 |
6 |
6.8 |
|
Alternative 2 |
1 |
10 |
3 |
1-5 |
3.4 |
|
Alternative 3 |
10 |
1 |
6-8 |
10 |
7.6 |
|
Alternative 4 |
4 |
5 |
10 |
1 |
5.1 |
8. Indicate
in the space below what you could do if either of these tests showed the
decision to be sensitive to the range of uncertainty involved. 6 points
(11%)
|
Try uncertainty proofing
with respect to the critical uncertainty (exercise control, obtain
information, keep options open, diversify, share risk).
|
9. When is it not wise to pick the alternative with the
highest value? 4 points (6%)
| When it fails the
universalizability test and may be morally wrong.
|
