**5. Paradigms of P2 type used in CDM**

### **5.1 Paradigm looking for an appropriate choice**

One of the main criticisms of the objective experimental paradigm is its highly analytical nature. The initial breakdown into elementary units (or considered as such) does not guarantee that the conduct studied will not lose some of its fundamental aspects, which is all the more likely if the entity studied is complex, like all human conducts.

One of the strategies selected to dismiss this risk simply consists of referring to totality as a source of information. In this paradigm, the very idea of looking for

variables is abandoned, and the situation will be considered as an entity whose global configuration must be respected.

This choice turns out to be quite the opposite of the analytical approaches conducted in the laboratory, which consider globality as being an obstacle to knowledge. The question is nevertheless worthy of being discussed at the cost of an epistemological revolution, can we consider that the concept of globality is a provider of information?

#### **5.2 The processing of globality**

Regarding this aspect, psychology may claim a concept developed in the middle of the twentieth century, first in Germany, then in the United States, by psychologist Kurt Lewin. Considered one of the founders of Gestalt Psychology, this author recommends considering conducts (and choices) as global entities which cannot be reduced to the sum of their parts. Globality has its own specific properties: it, therefore, provides information that will be lost if any analytical reduction attempt is made.

Gestalt psychologists are known by the public for having provided examples that involve visual perception applied to reversible figures, demonstrating that the "background" and the "shape" can be alternated. The same graphical representation results in the successive perception of *two* quite different objects or scenes. Far from being merely entertaining, these situations, widely published in magazines, identify two epistemological properties. Firstly, the figure "stands out" from the background *dynamically*, suggesting the underlying presence of active forces. Secondly, the functional alternations imply (semi-) global entities, that is, the figure and the background, but which only have temporary perceptive status. Apart from the dynamism, this type of phenomenon reveals the relativism of visual perception too often considered objective and, finally, may question the validity of the visual testimony.

#### **5.3 The contributions of the gestalt paradigm**

The psychological Gestalt concepts have introduced new strategies in the construction of decision-making conduct. The two main references concerning the purpose of this conceptual current are the notions of *force* and of *field*, both used in physics. The decision-making process involves several forces and the action selected is in some respects, the result of a system.

Inventor of action research, promoter of group techniques, and author of a fundamental book, Lewin [11] introduced numerous innovations in psychological research. He emphasizes the importance of the field (environment) and of the time when processing takes place, and alongside this time perspective, he introduces the notion of forces as a determining factor in the choice of action (these properties being adapted to decision-making). Applying the fundamental Gestalt principle, these field characteristics, even when they are evaluated by the same decision-maker, do not necessarily have either the same value or a fixed nature since the time, the environment and objectives of the planned action may vary.

Lewin's premature death and the absence at the time of a methodological framework adapted to the treatment of these notions temporarily limited the scope of these concepts, some of which were only to be confirmed several decades later. We will remember from this trend that the laws stated concern the organization and the properties of the object studied in its entirety and not, as in the OEP, the method used to do so.

On a different subject, the studies conducted by Edwards [12, 13] represent a determining milestone in the "psychologization" of decision-making. By involving *Perspective Chapter: A Perspective on Cognitive Decision-Making in Dynamic Systems… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108981*

the decision-maker from the start of the processing method as a stakeholder in the construction of the situation (and no longer as an arbitrator who chooses the action at the end of the processing), these contributions will allow new types of processing.

#### **5.4 The notion of facet**

As described in the previous paragraph, decision-making consists in identifying an underlying entity (a risk, a critical situation, a state, a disease, etc.) using signs that it produces, which can be observed or even measured in the outside world. The entity is considered in its entirety as being the common origin of the observed or measured signs also called facets, although they are nevertheless varied. This diversity deserves to be considered positively since the variety and diversity of the signs are desirable in order to decrease the initial uncertainty more rapidly.

However, even more than their number, the determining factor is consistency, a cognitive quality that reflects whether the signs are compatible with each other during the various processing operations. The inference approach regarding the nature of the entity concerned requires diversity rather than repetitiveness. The aim is therefore to collect different but consistent signs. For instance, it is possible to identify the composer of a piece of classical music from facets characterizing his style.

#### **5.5 Facets and informational contents**

Every facet is an observable expression issued by an underlying entity. It provides information from the outset regarding the source which produced it, so that action can be taken on this source.

Spontaneously, the facet has two epistemological qualities. Firstly, it is multidetermined due to the large number of conditions accounting for its appearance and resulting from interactions. Secondly, each facet has a quality label: it naturally shows the result of interactive effects without having to conceive them in an abstract manner before testing them. The facets result in fact neither from an experimental plan nor from a hybrid created according to previously selected procedures. The facet is determined from *tangible* influences, not from abstract suppositions.

## **6. A change of format for decision-making situations**

#### **6.1 A positioning in a natural, open space**

By abandoning the laboratory and its associated methods, it will be possible to study new types of situations and direct the interest of researchers toward the processing of decision-making or prediction situations treated *in situ*. In view of the need for knowledge related to social evolution, psychologists have had to deal with a completely different type of decision-making, in which the effects are not expected but have already been produced. As a result, situations in natural environment (i.e., outside the laboratory) must be taken into account; these situations include numerous variables which are often difficult to identify and which generally include interactions at various levels.

Some concrete examples of this change of structure and of the decision-making difficulties it generates are deeply engraved in social memory. The collective memory was marked by the forest fires in California (summer of 2018) and the bushfires in Australia spreading rapidly from December 20193 and which would only be brought under control in March 2020 despite the considerable firefighting means implemented.

#### **6.2 Social decisions**

These situations receiving wide media coverage include (in particular) forest fires and pollution.

Decision-making difficulties are also encountered in similar forms in the management of marine pollution due to oil spills from tankers. There are numerous examples. We will only mention three of the most well-known. The Amoco Cadiz (1978) [14] caused major pollution after sinking off the Brittany coast (France); in a similar event, the Exxon Valdez (1989) seriously polluted the Alaska coastline and the sinking of the Prestige (2002) led to an ecological disaster with a major tourist and economic impact to the northwest coastline of the Iberian Peninsula.

Other situations of identical architecture, such as management of a pandemic or of global warming place, the decision-makers in situations in which they are faced with cognitive obstacles. Unlike the previous paradigm, the decision-makers are not responsible for creating the situations, they simply observe that they exist and that they have their own dynamics.

#### **6.3 Interpersonal decisions**

On another level, which confirms that it really is the architecture of the situation and not only the number of persons concerned, which must be considered, we find two recurrent societal issues. There is in fact a need to make decisions rapidly to deal with situations involving clearly identified individuals or social groups. In this respect, two types of situations are characteristic: firstly, family violence and abuse by adults on children, and secondly, school or group harassment by peers.

The studies conducted on bullying Refs. [15, 16] demonstrated that while the conduct of the persons involved, aggressors and victims, depended on personal psychological characteristics, those of the field (cyberspace) played a determining role in the expression of their intensity, their permanency or their termination.

Whether social, within the meaning of the group, or social, within the meaning of the presence of another person, these situations require a different epistemological position.
