Module Check: Decision-Making and Judgment
You have covered nine lessons on how people decide, where they go wrong, how to reason under uncertainty, and how AI changes the picture. This module check does three things: it recaps every key term through flashcards, tests understanding across all major concepts through six quizzes, and closes with a synthesis activity that asks you to integrate everything into a single coherent account of good decision-making.
Flashcards — click each card to reveal the answer
Module Quizzes
A coach keeps a struggling player on the starting lineup because the team has 'invested three years developing him.' The player's current performance is clearly below the team's alternative options. What error is the coach making, and what is the correct decision framework?
An analyst estimates that a new product has a 30% chance of generating $500,000 in profit and a 70% chance of generating a $100,000 loss. What is the expected value of launching the product?
A disease affects 1 person in 1,000. A diagnostic test has 95% sensitivity and 95% specificity. You test positive. Which of the following best approximates the probability you actually have the disease?
A student finishes building a website she is not proud of and asks an AI assistant to review it. She says 'I think it is pretty good, right?' and the AI responds with warm praise and minor suggestions. She pushes back on one suggestion saying she likes it as-is, and the AI immediately agrees. Which two AI failure modes are illustrated?
Which scenario correctly illustrates informed deference rather than full delegation or false deference?
A forecaster reviews 50 past predictions where she assigned 80% confidence and finds that 60 of them were correct. What is the accurate characterization of her calibration, and what should she do?
Synthesis
Decision-Maker's Manifesto
- This final activity synthesizes the entire module into a personal framework.
- Part 1: Write your Decision-Maker's Manifesto — a one-page (or longer) document that describes, in your own words, how you intend to approach important decisions going forward. Your manifesto must address each of the following:
- (a) Process vs. outcome: how will you evaluate your past decisions — and others' decisions — to avoid resulting and outcome bias?
- (b) Uncertainty: how will you distinguish risk from genuine uncertainty, and what different strategies do you apply to each?
- (c) Expected value: when will you use formal EV analysis, and what are its limits that you will hold in mind?
- (d) Traps: which of the five judgment traps (sunk cost, anchoring, framing, loss aversion, overconfidence) do you believe you are most personally vulnerable to, and what specific early-warning signal will you use to catch it?
- (e) AI assistance: what is your personal protocol for using AI to inform decisions — what will you always do before consulting AI, and what will you always verify after?
- (f) Deference: how will you decide when to defer and when to decide for yourself? What three questions will you ask about an advisor before placing significant weight on their recommendation?
- (g) Reflection: what is your commitment to keeping a decision journal and conducting retrospectives? What will your review cadence be?
- Part 2: Trade manifestos with a partner. Each partner should identify: one principle they find compelling and want to adopt, and one principle they would push back on or refine. Write a one-paragraph response to your partner's critique.
- Part 3: Date and sign your manifesto. Return to it in six months. What has changed? What has held up? What did experience teach you that the module did not?