Browsing by Subject "decision-making"

Climate change impacts can substantially vary between regions, which requires regional decision-making on how to best moderate the adverse effects and seek potential benefits. However, actors can experience multiple barriers during climate change adaptation decision-making, which need to be overcome to enable more efficient and successful regional adaptation processes. This thesis aims to increase the knowledge on how actors can approach overcoming barriers to adaptation in a regional and cross-sectoral climate change adaptation decision-making process. A qualitative case study is conducted, which focuses on inspecting a regional climate change adaptation pilot project in the Finnish region of Pirkanmaa. Various regional and local actors participated to and collaborated on the project. The study constitutes of 11 expert interviews that are subjected to directed qualitative content analysis. The thesis utilises an analytical framework which leans on institutional theory and incorporates concepts from actor-centred institutionalism and empirical literature on barriers to and opportunities for adaptation, adaptive capacity, and adaptation decision-making processes. With the use of this framework, this thesis answers the research question of: What are the perceptions, preferences, and capabilities of the involved key actors regarding the regional climate change adaptation decision-making process in Pirkanmaa, Finland? This thesis discovers that the actors perceive mainly informational and institutional barriers to impede the decision-making process, in particular the understanding phase. Nevertheless, many of the barriers can be tackled during the process with both informational and institutional opportunities, in addition to social opportunities through the improvement of networks. The actors also have several preferences with regard to how the barriers should be overcome. Such preferences include clarifying the actors’ roles and responsibilities at the start of the understanding phase of decision-making, as well as ideas yet to be tested, such as unifying regional utilisation of adaptation-related data. The study does not manage to provide conclusive answers on the initial capabilities of the actors. Still, clear indications could be detected pertaining to the increase in elements of adaptive capacity, such as information, institutions, and skills, following from the numerous opportunities that the actors experienced. The explorative and descriptive results of this thesis bring new perspectives and an empirical contribution into the field of overcoming barriers to adaptation by focusing on climate change adaptation decision-making at the Finnish regional level. These findings can be used as a basis for upcoming research, but they can also be applied by various actors in designing current and upcoming climate change adaptation decision-making processes.

This thesis aims to offer a practical solution for making cost-effective decisions regarding weather routing deployment to optimize computational costs. The study focuses on developing three collaborative model components that collectively address the challenge of rerouting decision-making. Model 1 involves training a neural network-based Ship Performance Model, which forms the foundation for the weather routing model. Model 2 is centered around constructing a time-dependent path-finding model that integrates real-time weather forecasts. This model optimizes routing within a designated experimental area, generating simulation training samples. Model 3 utilizes the outcomes of Model 2 to train a practical machine learning decision-making model. This model seeks to address the question: should the weather routing system be activated and the route be adjusted based on updated weather forecasts? The integration of these models supports informed maritime decision-making. While these methods represent a preliminary step towards optimizing weather routing deployment frequencies, they hold the potential for enhancing operational efficiency and responsible resource usage in maritime sector.

Indirect reciprocity is a mechanism of cooperation between self-interested agents in which an individual helps another in order to gain a cooperative reputation, and is then rewarded by third-parties who conditionally help those who have helped others. Social Heuristics Hypothesis, an application of dual-process models to cooperation decisions, states that intuitive decision-making defaults to decisions that are typically beneficial in social interactions, whereas deliberative decisions are fitted more accurately to the specific features of the present situation. Drawing on these two models of social behaviour, the present studies hypothesised that promoting intuitive decision-making results in more reciprocal helping and cooperation decisions. Two pre-registered online-studies (total N = 487) did not support the hypothesis. While indirect reciprocity was observed, a time pressure manipulation designed to increase intuitive versus deliberative decision-making processes did not have the predicted effects in a Dictator game or Prisoner’s Dilemma with partners who had been either fair or selfish in an earlier Dictator game with a third-party player. Additionally, Cognitive Reflection Test scores failed to predict the reciprocity observed. Explorative analysis showed that, contrary to hypothesis, contributions to partners who had been selfish were higher in time pressure treatment versus a treatment where participants were made to wait before submitting their decisions. This finding could potentially be explained by social heuristics that promote signalling one’s cooperative qualities instead of indirect reciprocity. The predictions of Social Heuristics Hypothesis have been under active interest and dispute during the last decade, and the present studies contribute to an unstudied field of Social Heuristics Hypothesis in the domain of indirect reciprocity.

Decision-making is an important part of all of software development. This is especially true in the context of software architecture. Software architecture can even be thought of as a set of architectural decisions. Decision-making therefore plays a large part in influencing the architecture of a system. This thesis studies architecturally significant decision-making in the context of a software development project. This thesis presents the results of a case study where the primary source of data was interviews. The case is a single decision made in the middle of a subcontracted project. It involves the development team and several stakeholders from the client, including architects. The decision was handled quickly by the development team when an acute need for a decision arose. The work relating to the decision-making was mostly done within the agile development process used by the development team. Only the final approval from the client was done outside the development process. This final approval was given after the decision was already decided in practise and an implementation based on it was built. This illustrates how difficult it is to incorporate outside decision-making into software development. The decision-making also had a division of labour where one person did the researching and preparing of the the decision. This constituted most of the work done relating to the decision. This type of division of labour may perhaps be generalized further into other decision-making elsewhere within software development generally.

Due to urbanization the importance of forests surrounding cities and municipal centers has grown significantly among residents. Increased use of recreational forests has led to the state where decisionmakers have started to pay more and more attention to forest management goals and participatory methods. In many cases municipalities and cities have started to incorporate resident’s perspectives to management plans and planning processes have developed towards strategic planning. The aim of this study was to determine, how well the participation was incorporated to planning process and, were the planners able to include stakeholder’s perspectives into the Puijo’s management plan. The data for this study was collected with internet based survey from stakeholder and steering group members that participated to the planning. The data was analyzed with Q-method. Qualitative analysis based on Tuler and Webler’s (1999) normative principles of participation was also carried out to assess the planning process. According to Q-analysis respondents formed four different perspective groups that described the planning process and its outcomes The groups were as follows: group disappointed to possibilities to affect planning, cooperation skeptics, supporters of systematic planning and the plan of the silent majority. All the groups felt that the planning process did not improve cooperation between stakeholders. Also, the availability of information was generally considered as a weak part of the process. The practical arrangements and the opportunity to participate to planning were considered successful areas by all the perspective groups. The group’s perspectives varied the most with issues concerning the ability to affect planning and its outcomes. Puijo’s planning process was a good example of, how a number of different participation methods can be incorporated seamlessly into the planning process. Simple formula for successful planning process could not be determined because participatory methods and their scope must be arranged according to the planning problem and the influence of the parties involved. However, the results provided valuable information for planners developing and carrying out participatory planning. In future participation processes stakeholders should be made clear, what are their abilities to affect the outcomes because over optimistic expectations can easily lead to disappointment. Also, the objectives of the planning process should be paid more attention. Objectives should be shaped to more concrete form. This way intersecting objectives could be easily addressed before conflicts develop. The use of decision support methods should also be increased because they offer more transparent way to justify decisions to stakeholders.

The purpose of this study was to look for relationships between analytical thinking skills, two selected decision-making characteristics (time preference, risk preference) and temperament. A commonly applied test to detect individual differences in analytical thinking is the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005), which captures important characteristics of rational thinking, different from intelligence and other cognitive ability (Toplak, West, & Stanovich, 2011). If a strong correlation between the ability to analytical thinking and some other types of characteristics was found, it would help to identify individuals with good analytical decision-making skills and to clarify the phenomenon of analytical thinking. This work continued the exploration of relations between individual differences in analytical thinking, assessed as performance in CRT, and selected psychological characteristics: time preference and risk preference, where a link has been detected in previous research on university students in the U.S. In this study, time preference was assessed as performance in the Consideration of Future Consequences Test (CFC-14; Joireman, Shaffer, Balliet, & Strathman, 2012). With data gathered from Finnish university students, this study attempted to replicate the findings of the original study (Frederick, 2005), where a relationship between the CRT and risk preference was detected. The current study extended previous research by examining also the relation of analytical thinking skills and neurobiological temperament (Rawlings, Tapola & Niemivirta, 2017). The relation of time preference and temperament was also studied. The participants in the present study were 135 first-year students from the National Defence University in Finland. The students completed a self-report questionnaire via a weblink. An exploratory factor analysis was performed to test the construct validity of the models applied. The correlations between the tests were examined and by using standard regression analyses the effects of the temperament on the time preference were analysed. Contrary to expectations, no relation between the CRT score and time preference, risk preference or temperament were detected. However, interesting links between time preference and temperament were found. Therefore, future research could investigate further how neurobiological temperament sets our concerns with future and immediate consequences, that is, our farsightedness or the lack of it.

Aims. In our everyday activities, we need to make a great number of decisions, like choosing a high-rewarded but effortful or low-rewarded but rather effortless task. This value-based decision-making is regulated by the dopaminergic system. Recent technological advances have made it possible to measure in real-time the neural activity of dopaminergic brain regions and thus enabled training to self-regulate those regions. The present study aims to investigate the effect of self-regulation of dopaminergic brain regions on value-based decision-making – specifically effort discounting – and how stress moderates the relationship between neural activity and value-based decision-making. Methods. Using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI), 74 participants (34 females, age M= 22.5) were trained to self-regulate dopaminergic midbrain regions. During the subsequent test session participants up- or down-regulated dopaminergic midbrain regions before performing the value-based decision-making task. Participants were faced with a choice to either accept to perform the N-back task and get a higher reward or refuse and get a lower reward. Acute and chronic stress was measured before and after the experiment using questionnaires. Linear mixed model analyses were performed to investigate the effects of self-regulation and stress on decision-making behavior. Results and conclusions. Upregulation of dopaminergic midbrain activity significantly increased the probability of choosing the effortful task and decreased effort discounting. Downregulation of the dopaminergic midbrain was not significantly affecting decision-making. Chronic stress was not significantly affecting decision-making. Acute stress had a significant main effect on decision- making and interacted with the self-regulation of dopaminergic midbrain activity by increasing effort discounting. Taken together, upregulation of the dopaminergic midbrain is an effective way to decrease effort discounting, and acute stress can have a negative impact on value-based decision-making.

During the Covid-19 pandemic in Finland, there was a debate about the usefulness of face masks in suppressing the epidemic. Lack of scientific knowledge was emphasised in the debate, and the participants sought to define the role of science in decision-making. In this thesis, the ways in which ignorance and uncertainty were discussed and used to define the boundaries of science in the Finnish face mask debate are studied. In the theoretical part of the thesis, the meanings of ignorance and uncertainty are clarified and the boundary-work of science as well as uncertainty as a boundary-ordering device are discussed. The politicisation of non-knowledge and the characteristics of policy-relevant science are also examined. In the empirical part, the knowledge/non-knowledge claims of the Finnish experts and decision-makers who participated in the face mask debate are analysed. The data consists of 99 quotations collected from news articles published from March 1 to October 31, 2020. Qualitative frame analysis is employed to examine the forms of knowledge and ignorance along with the boundary-ordering devices used in the debate. The results show that experts working at the science-policy boundary highlighted uncertainty and ignorance most often. They also used uncertainty as a boundary-ordering device the most, although overall, this came up very rarely in the debate. The main discrepancy was between the assessments of different expert bodies, as research scientists did not usually mention the underlying uncertainties of scientific findings. Different actors had different approaches towards knowledge and ignorance, reflecting differences in epistemic cultures. Regulatory science and academic science have different criteria for assessing the credibility of knowledge. Moreover, not all ignorance and uncertainty in decision-making can be reduced with scientific methods. Therefore, more resilient decision-making processes should be developed, in which ignorance and limitations of scientific knowledge are identified and embedded in the decisions.