Behavioral Decision Making
Evidence-based practice (EBP) = the conscientious (effort), explicit (clarity) and judicious (critical of
quality) use of the best available evidence from multiple sources to increase the likelihood of a
favourable outcome
- About the process
- Not about certainties
- About probabilities and likelihoods
- About reducing uncertainty
- Used first to identify problem or opportunity and if (and only if) one identified. Then used to
identify possible solution or invention.
- 4 sources
Scientific literature
Stakeholders
Organization
Practioners
- 6 steps
Asking: Translating a practical issue or problem into an answerable question
When encountering a problem, take a step back and spend time thinking
about what the problem really is.
Feels uncomfortable because we prefer talking about solutions and we are
incentivized to do things all the time
Acquiring: Systematically searching for and retrieving the evidence (get all info
together)
Appraising: Critically judging the trustworthiness and relevance of the evidence for
each study
Aggregating: Weighing and pulling together the evidence
Applying: Incorporating the evidence into decision-making process
Assessing: Evaluating the outcome of the decision taken
- 3 key differences between evidence-based practice and what we already do
Approach to use of evidence
Conscientious: persevere, be diligent, build capacity and capability
Explicit: share, discuss, capture
Judicious: judge quality, don’t automatically trust, focus on the best evidence
Multiple sources
To triangulate and cross-check (get the same picture from different sources)
To contextualize and make sense and better use of evidence from other
sources
A structured and stepped approach
Get evidence first and then consider evidence for possible solutions
Helps dealing with being easily distracted and pushed off course
Structure helps dealing with many obstacles
- May seen as irrelevant but also harmful
Slows things down
Raises questions about the purpose of activities
Reduces decision-making autonomy
Can open decision-makers up to unwelcome and unfamiliar scrutiny
A fear that EBP may raise the ghost of decision past
1
, -
- Why not popular?
Focusing way too much on ‘the science’
Not acknowledging that universities and academics are part of the problem of low adoption not
part of the solution
Framing it as part of the practitioner/academic divide/gap debate
Implying that scientists are somehow better compared to managers when they are not
Making EBP sound like a technocratic solution which can only be undertaken by experts, nerds,
wonks, brainiacs, elites…
Being too myth-bustery - trends to alienate rather than engage - crucial to challenge dodgy stuff
but needs to be much more sophisticate
Not sufficiently appreciating how the work context pulls practitioners away from EBP. Not
appreciating managers constraints and incentives
Implying practitioners are making mistakes or are silly or odd or not thing straight
Sounding (and being) smug and preachy – ‘you really should do this it’s good for you’
Not being sufficiently clear about when an EBP approach makes more or less sense
Not engaging effectively with reasonable objections to EBP
Insufficient focus on the ‘diagnosis’ part of EBP and too much focus on using EBP to find a solution
Positioning EBP as something individuals or teams can do when it requires structural and
systemic thinking and action
Not emphasizing that the quality of decision-making is about the process not the
outcome
Failing to clarify EBP is not a one-off thing but needs to be part of a long term process
Not starting from where practitioners are now and what they can realistically do now
Positioning EBP as about making rally very well-informed decisions rather than better-
informed decisions
Focusing on the teeny-tiny incy-wincy proportion of practitioners who want and are able
to try EBP
- It’s the activation of your autonomic nervous system, this is known as nervous energy = you
increased energy or arousal leads to the likelihood of the dominant response occurring.
- Social loafing = a tendency to put forth less effort when working on a group task, if the
individual contributions aren’t evaluated.
Processes that can occur when individuals come together in a group
- Conformity = peer pressure: conformity is a tendency for people to bring their behaviours in
line with group norms --> it’s powerful in social situations
Positive group behavior: lead to peace, harmony and happiness
Negative group behavior: can be catastrophic
- Group polarization = a phenomenon in which group decision enhances or amplifies the
original opinion of group members and for this to happen several factors must be present.
1: All the views do not have equal influence,
So for a view point to influence a group’s final decision, it’s shared by the majority of
individuals in the group.
2: In discussions about the topic, arguments made tend to favour the majority of
popular view and any criticism is directed to the minority view and this is called
confirmation bias.
- Group thinking: occurs when maintaining harmony among group members is more important
than carefully analysing the problem at hand.
2
, Cohesive groups that are insulated from other people’s opinions and feel that they
are invulnerable
Causes of groupthink:
- In highly cohesive groups with strong leaders when the social pressure to maintain
conformity and harmony in the group overrides sound decision-making
- When the group isolates itself from outside ideas and influences and group members
overestimate the group
- When there is strong pressure on individuals resulting from external threat
- In case there is a lack of systematic procedures that guide accurate collection of evidence
Prevent groupthink:
- Breach group isolation
- Breach conformity
- Leadership style
Leader impartiality until a decision is reached
Encourage a norma of critical thinking in the group
- Generating alternatives and leave the possibility to re-evaluate decisions
How does groups reach a consensus? Groups implement a procedure that is called robust
average
Good collective decisions require 2 components: deliberation & diversity in opinions
Make voice heard in societies by direct or indirect voting
You have group-level things and individual-level things
High cultural diversity groups: centralization leads to better performance
High national diversity groups: uncertainty about team potency
Individual intelligence is very different from group intelligence
If you look at the groups average member intelligence (at the individual level) it only
explains a very limited amount in the differences in the group performance
- What determines variance in group performance?
Compositional theories: focus on personal attributes of group members --> mixed
results (e.g. use all kinds of personal characteristics)
Structural theories: focus on patterns of interactions among group members --> little
evidence and much debate (how is the network in the group and how do they work
together)
- Predictors of group performance:
Diversity: distribution of differences among group members regarding grade, tenure,
gender, age and culture
Workflow network density: average strength of relations in the group
Workflow network centralization: structural aspects of how people work together
- Outcomes of group performance:
Potency: generalized beliefs in the team about it’s performance capacities
Performance: expert staff ratings of team’s final reports
- There are different kind of variables about teamwork and how they are related to each other
3
Evidence-based practice (EBP) = the conscientious (effort), explicit (clarity) and judicious (critical of
quality) use of the best available evidence from multiple sources to increase the likelihood of a
favourable outcome
- About the process
- Not about certainties
- About probabilities and likelihoods
- About reducing uncertainty
- Used first to identify problem or opportunity and if (and only if) one identified. Then used to
identify possible solution or invention.
- 4 sources
Scientific literature
Stakeholders
Organization
Practioners
- 6 steps
Asking: Translating a practical issue or problem into an answerable question
When encountering a problem, take a step back and spend time thinking
about what the problem really is.
Feels uncomfortable because we prefer talking about solutions and we are
incentivized to do things all the time
Acquiring: Systematically searching for and retrieving the evidence (get all info
together)
Appraising: Critically judging the trustworthiness and relevance of the evidence for
each study
Aggregating: Weighing and pulling together the evidence
Applying: Incorporating the evidence into decision-making process
Assessing: Evaluating the outcome of the decision taken
- 3 key differences between evidence-based practice and what we already do
Approach to use of evidence
Conscientious: persevere, be diligent, build capacity and capability
Explicit: share, discuss, capture
Judicious: judge quality, don’t automatically trust, focus on the best evidence
Multiple sources
To triangulate and cross-check (get the same picture from different sources)
To contextualize and make sense and better use of evidence from other
sources
A structured and stepped approach
Get evidence first and then consider evidence for possible solutions
Helps dealing with being easily distracted and pushed off course
Structure helps dealing with many obstacles
- May seen as irrelevant but also harmful
Slows things down
Raises questions about the purpose of activities
Reduces decision-making autonomy
Can open decision-makers up to unwelcome and unfamiliar scrutiny
A fear that EBP may raise the ghost of decision past
1
, -
- Why not popular?
Focusing way too much on ‘the science’
Not acknowledging that universities and academics are part of the problem of low adoption not
part of the solution
Framing it as part of the practitioner/academic divide/gap debate
Implying that scientists are somehow better compared to managers when they are not
Making EBP sound like a technocratic solution which can only be undertaken by experts, nerds,
wonks, brainiacs, elites…
Being too myth-bustery - trends to alienate rather than engage - crucial to challenge dodgy stuff
but needs to be much more sophisticate
Not sufficiently appreciating how the work context pulls practitioners away from EBP. Not
appreciating managers constraints and incentives
Implying practitioners are making mistakes or are silly or odd or not thing straight
Sounding (and being) smug and preachy – ‘you really should do this it’s good for you’
Not being sufficiently clear about when an EBP approach makes more or less sense
Not engaging effectively with reasonable objections to EBP
Insufficient focus on the ‘diagnosis’ part of EBP and too much focus on using EBP to find a solution
Positioning EBP as something individuals or teams can do when it requires structural and
systemic thinking and action
Not emphasizing that the quality of decision-making is about the process not the
outcome
Failing to clarify EBP is not a one-off thing but needs to be part of a long term process
Not starting from where practitioners are now and what they can realistically do now
Positioning EBP as about making rally very well-informed decisions rather than better-
informed decisions
Focusing on the teeny-tiny incy-wincy proportion of practitioners who want and are able
to try EBP
- It’s the activation of your autonomic nervous system, this is known as nervous energy = you
increased energy or arousal leads to the likelihood of the dominant response occurring.
- Social loafing = a tendency to put forth less effort when working on a group task, if the
individual contributions aren’t evaluated.
Processes that can occur when individuals come together in a group
- Conformity = peer pressure: conformity is a tendency for people to bring their behaviours in
line with group norms --> it’s powerful in social situations
Positive group behavior: lead to peace, harmony and happiness
Negative group behavior: can be catastrophic
- Group polarization = a phenomenon in which group decision enhances or amplifies the
original opinion of group members and for this to happen several factors must be present.
1: All the views do not have equal influence,
So for a view point to influence a group’s final decision, it’s shared by the majority of
individuals in the group.
2: In discussions about the topic, arguments made tend to favour the majority of
popular view and any criticism is directed to the minority view and this is called
confirmation bias.
- Group thinking: occurs when maintaining harmony among group members is more important
than carefully analysing the problem at hand.
2
, Cohesive groups that are insulated from other people’s opinions and feel that they
are invulnerable
Causes of groupthink:
- In highly cohesive groups with strong leaders when the social pressure to maintain
conformity and harmony in the group overrides sound decision-making
- When the group isolates itself from outside ideas and influences and group members
overestimate the group
- When there is strong pressure on individuals resulting from external threat
- In case there is a lack of systematic procedures that guide accurate collection of evidence
Prevent groupthink:
- Breach group isolation
- Breach conformity
- Leadership style
Leader impartiality until a decision is reached
Encourage a norma of critical thinking in the group
- Generating alternatives and leave the possibility to re-evaluate decisions
How does groups reach a consensus? Groups implement a procedure that is called robust
average
Good collective decisions require 2 components: deliberation & diversity in opinions
Make voice heard in societies by direct or indirect voting
You have group-level things and individual-level things
High cultural diversity groups: centralization leads to better performance
High national diversity groups: uncertainty about team potency
Individual intelligence is very different from group intelligence
If you look at the groups average member intelligence (at the individual level) it only
explains a very limited amount in the differences in the group performance
- What determines variance in group performance?
Compositional theories: focus on personal attributes of group members --> mixed
results (e.g. use all kinds of personal characteristics)
Structural theories: focus on patterns of interactions among group members --> little
evidence and much debate (how is the network in the group and how do they work
together)
- Predictors of group performance:
Diversity: distribution of differences among group members regarding grade, tenure,
gender, age and culture
Workflow network density: average strength of relations in the group
Workflow network centralization: structural aspects of how people work together
- Outcomes of group performance:
Potency: generalized beliefs in the team about it’s performance capacities
Performance: expert staff ratings of team’s final reports
- There are different kind of variables about teamwork and how they are related to each other
3
