Stages of Decision-Making

This paper meets the Program Learning Outcome for decision making and will be used in part for your overall Writing Instructive grade. You will write an essay based on the following information (Hint: See Essay Writing in the Additional Resources for the structure of this assignment). Remember: You will write in essay format (you must have an introduction, body, summary/conclusions structure), and you must format according to APA, you will include a title page, citations in the body of the paper, and sources listed on the References page for the citations used in the body. In the APA Manual concentrate on reading and understanding Chapter 2 (Student Paper sections), and Chapters 8 -10.

1. There are 4 Stages of rational decision making. Identify and describe each Stage. Summarize each phase in two to three sentences each (this means paraphrase; see APA CH 8).
2. Experiential Decision Making. The objective of this section is to apply your knowledge of decision making to an important decision you previously made (i.e. buying a car, house, etc.).

Referring to Figure 11.2, think back to a recent expensive purchase you made. It could have been a bike, phone, car, house, etc. To evaluate the quality of your decision, please think about your purchase when answering each of the questions below. The questions below are intended to spark thought about your decision/purchase. You will complete this section as the second section in your essay. This means you will include the responses for each question (not the question itself) into properly formatted and grammatically correct paragraphs. NOTE: Bullet Comments are not allowed.

1. What problem did you hope to solve by making this purchase?
2. What alternative(s) (or competing) products did you consider?
3. How did you evaluate the different alternative (or competing) products? Did you identify each product’s strengths and weaknesses? How much of a role did cost play in your decision?
4. When you made the final choice, was it a maximizing, satisficing, or optimizing outcome? Why?
5. Before purchasing the product, did you test it out? If so, how many times?
6. Describe how you feel about the purchase after making it. Was it positive or negative? How did it satisfy your original need(s)?

SIMCHECK: The required file format for the paper is a .doc or .docx file (MS Word). This assignment will be run through the Canvas SimCheck Plagiarism Review program. The goal of this first paper is to have a 15% or less similarity. Ensure you submit before the actual due date to determine your similarity. If your similarity exceeds 15%, you must rework until you have achieved 15% or less.

Implications for High Similarity: A similarity report of higher than 15% will result in a grade reduction between 10% – 100% of your assignment grade. High similarity may also constitute an academic integrity violation and result in an F in the course. I will be checking general similarities and AI generation. Given that an essential purpose of this course is to improve your writing, using AI or related software programs to generate the content you submit on this or other writing assignments is prohibited and will constitute a severe academic integrity violation, resulting in an F in the course. I will be checking for this and have a lot of experience.