Why people are not always rational

Assignment: Why People Are Not Always Rational

Note: Next week, you will be will be studying the dynamics of group decision making. To prepare for the Week 8 assignments, you will complete this week's assignment in groups. Your Instructor will assign you to one of six groups to complete this Assignment and the Discussion that follows. Remember, students taking this course come from different cultures around the world. It is important to be respectful of each other, regardless of how different your ways of thinking or interacting might be.

Psychological research shows the way people make decisions is often not rational. To prepare for this Assignment, read about the Allais Paradox and the Ellsberg Paradox in the Hastie and Dawes text. Also read Daniel Kahneman's Nobel Prize lecture, "Maps of Bounded Rationality: A Perspective on Intuitive Judgment and Choice."

For this Assignment, your Instructor will assign the following:

Each student to one of six groups
To each group, one of the following chapters from the Hastie and Dawes text: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9
To each group, one of the videos listed under Media in this week's resources.

Chapters 4 through 9 of the Hastie and Dawes text present a variety of ways in which people may succumb to inherent decision-making biases. For this Assignment, each student will read one of these chapters and work collaboratively with his or her group to write a 3- to 5-page group paper that explains the content of the assigned chapter and its connection to the decision problems from Week 1. In your Discussion this week, you will post your paper for your colleagues to read and discuss.

With your group, identify decision problems from the Week 1 Assignment that fall within the purview of the challenges or biases associated with rational decision making as discussed in your group's assigned chapter and video.

With your group, collaboratively write a 3- to 5-page paper that explains your experiences with the Week 1 decision problems and how inherent decision-making biases may have influenced rational thought. In this paper, analyze whether you were affected by these biases as identified in your group resources. Explain how these biases affected your decision making.