Psychological Influences on Decision Making

If you are looking to learn about how decisions are made, including information on how thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and attitudes influence decisions, this course is for you! This course provides a comprehensive look at the psychological influences on decision making, beginning with the role of decision making in everyday life and distinguishing between intrapersonal influences and interpersonal influences on decision making.

Then, the course moves on to describe the cognitive processes that affect decision making, including schemas, cognitive heuristics, cognitive biases, attributions, affect, and attitudes. The course also describes the motivational processes that affect decision making, including the role of impressions, and needs of affiliation and consistency. In the next section, the course discusses ways decision making can be influenced by other individuals, including two approaches to persuasion: the message-learning approach and the cognitive response approach. You will also explore other concepts related to persuasion, such as compliance and obedience, followed by learning about bases of power, and which individuals are afforded power.

Next, the course focuses on how group dynamics affect decision making. You will learn how groups affect our decisions, thoughts, and behaviors through the processes of conformity, groupthink, group polarization, and deindividuation. The course also provides information to identify each of these processes in day-to-day group interactions, as well as strategies for avoiding the negative effects of each.

Last, the course examines how intergroup relations, or social group membership, can influence decision making. You will learn about the role of categories and stereotypes in decision making. The course provides information and examples to compare types of prejudice, including the role of ingroups and outgroups on prejudice. The course explores discrimination and institutional discrimination and examines the effects of discrimination on decision making.

By the end of the course, you will be equipped with the skills to make informed decisions and thoughtfully consider how other people make decisions and the factors that influence those decisions. These skills will enhance your decision making and communication with friends, acquaintances, children, teachers, colleagues, or employees.

Learning objectives

• Discuss the role of decision making in everyday life.
• Distinguish between intrapersonal and interpersonal influences on decision making.
• Describe the cognitive processes that affect decision making.
• Describe the motivational processes that affect decision making.
• Identify the ways decision making can be influenced by other individuals.
• Discuss how group dynamics affect decision making.
• Describe how intergroup relations can affect decision making.