Abstract
This chapter explores four social science disciplines and their perspectives and concerns in relation to decision making. The chapter is organized into four perspectives: sociology; management; marketing and education. The key concepts covered in the sociology section include how decisions are constrained and controlled by cooperation, competition, trust, reciprocity, and social norms. The management discipline is regarded as the science of decision making and this second section explores rational decision making, risk, uncertainty, the decision school, individual, and group decision making as well as the concept of adaptive decision making. The third major section examines decision making from a marketing perspective taking a broad view of communicating information and social influences. The focus in this section centers on unlocking the black box to optimize understanding mindsets, customer behaviors, cognitive style, and market appreciation. The final section deals with adaptive decision making in education and discusses recent studies in various education sectors including compulsory schooling: mainstream, exceptional students (gifted, talented, and special), and in other sectors such as higher education, vocational education, health and medical education, and workplace learning.
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Sofo, F., Colapinto, C., Sofo, M., Ammirato, S. (2013). Decision Making in the Social Sciences. In: Adaptive Decision Making and Intellectual Styles. SpringerBriefs in Psychology, vol 13. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6708-3_1
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