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14
Decision framing and
cognitive inertia
Introduction
This chapter extends and develops Chapter 6, which dealt with decision
trees and influence diagrams. In that chapter, we argued that the use
of an influence diagram by a decision analyst aids elicitation of the
decision maker’s view of a decision problem. It does this by allowing
the decision analyst to (re)structure the sequence of acts and events as
the decision maker clarifies his or her view of the decision problem. As
we noted in Chapter 6, by themselves, influence diagrams do not aid
in the creation of decision options. The present chapter discusses the
role of creativity in decision option generation. Are we able to recognize
when tried-and-trusted ways of making decisions are outmoded or do
we, instead, tend to fall back on previously successful decisions and
apply them in an habitual fashion? If the latter, then we may be unable
to recognize that rethinking a decision could be beneficial. This chapter
analyses laboratory and real-world research on our ability to creatively
improve our decision making and, finally, evaluates techniques to aid
the creation of fresh decision options.
Creativity in problem solving
Imagine that you are given an 8-pint jug full of water, and a 5-pint jug
and a 3-pint jug that are both empty. We will represent this as 8–8,
5–0 and 3–0, where the first figure indicates the size of the jug and the
second figure indicates the amount of water in the jug. Your task is to
pour the water from one jug into another until you end up with 6 pints
in the 8-pint jug and 2 pints in the 3-pint jug (i.e. 8–6, 5–0, 3–2).