Describe the risks and the benefits of the natural human process of dominance structuring?

Question

What will be an ideal response

Answer 1

The result of dominance structuring is confidence, whether reasonable or unreasonable, in the option we have decided upon. Dominance structuring supplies us with enough confidence to motivate us to act on our decisions and to sustain our efforts. Obviously, the more unreasonable biased, irrational, and unrealistic we have been in our dominance structuring, the greater the risks of a poor decision. On the other hand, if we have made the effort to be reasonable, truth-seeking, informed, open-minded, and neither too hasty nor too leisurely in coming to our decision, then there is a greater chance that the decision will be a wise one. And we would be foolish not to be confident in it and not to act on the basis of such a decision. It is hard to know what more we could want when we need to make an important decision that involves elements of risk and uncertainty. It would be a mistake to think of this human process as intentionally self-deceiving or consciously unethical or unfair. Rather, what cognitive scientists offer is a description of how human beings bolster confidence in their judgments under conditions of uncertainty. Humans seek to establish a strong and enduring rationale for the belief that one alternative dominates over others. This strong rationale impels us to act and sustains our continuing to act on the basis of that belief. We surround our choice with a rationale for its enduring superiority to the other choices. This strategy allows us then to move forward, with confidence in the quality of our decision. Understanding the power of dominance structuring explains why it is so difficult for us to reconsider a choice once it has been made or why the criticisms of our choices seem unpersuasive. Once we have dominance structured around a choice, the virtues of other options are less compelling to us and their vices appear larger than they may in fact be. When the dominance structure has been created, it is not uncommon to hear people describe the results of their deliberations with phrases like "When we looked at it, we really didn't have any other choice," or "Hey, at the end of the day it was a no-brainer!" These mantras are evidence that the decision maker has elevated one option to the top position and discredited or discounted all other options. Having done that, it often is unclear to the decision maker why any of the other options were ever considered viable in the first place. Searching for dominance in conjunction with elimination by aspect, satisficing, and anchoring with adjustment involves cognitive risks. First, we risk making poor decisions due to a lack of due consideration of all reasonable alternatives. Second, we risk being blind to the chance that our choice might be seriously flawed or need revision. At some level, we recognize these potential problems in human decision making. We know that once people have fixed their minds on given results, it is very difficult for them to change their judgment. In everyday life, who is there to review our decisions for us if we do not do have the habit of truth-seeking and the skill of self-regulation so that we can review them ourselves?