Abstract
This chapter focuses and elaborates on an eight-factor model of the processes by which people make decisions and select responses. The model is part of a larger conceptual framework (called human self-assessment process theory) which describes how people might make self-assessments of the state of their own subsystems and how these self-assessments affect their decisions, and the selection and execution of responses. We think the topic, because of its potential use for making predictions and in understanding how and why people behave as they do, is deserving of more systematic consideration than it has received.
An intervening variable approach is employed to explore the development and the effects of associations:
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1.
Between responses and particular consequences (later events) — called response-consequence associations
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2.
Between perceived situations and later events — called situation-consequence associations
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3.
Between perceived situations and responses — called situation-response associations
These associations involve what may be called cause and effect relationships. The condition(s) which a person identifies as the cause(s) is affected by many factors such as (a) the person’s educational and experiential background, (b) the gains and costs related to errors of causal inference, (c) the conditions over which the person has control — called the principle of relativity of causes, (d) human biases exhibited when diagnostic conclusions based on past hypotheses-symptom data are more sure than is warranted, and (e) the necessity that an informational relation exist between two events before a person will form a cause-effect association between them; repeated observation of regularity between events is neither sufficient nor necessary for a person to infer a cause—effect relation.
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Hunt, D.P., Sams, M.R. (1989). Human Self-Assessment Process Theory: An Eight-Factor Model of Human Performance and Learning; and Everyman’s Causation. In: Ljunggren, G., Dornic, S. (eds) Psychophysics in Action. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74382-5_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74382-5_4
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