Problem Solving, Decision Making and Creativity

Introduction

This course provides knowledge about how humans think: the doctrine of cognition. Cognitive psychology deals with all senior mental processes like senses and perception, attention, memory, problem solving, creativity, affect and decision making. This field is one of the biggest within psychological research and is connected to behavioral economics and practical organizational psychology. By learning about how people think and feel, one can achieve a greater understanding of oneself. By doing this, one can learn to solve problems in a more innovative way and make better decisions. This type of knowledge can be crucial when trying to create effective processes in knowledge intensive organizations, where people deal with problem solving, strategic decisions and creativity on a regular basis.  

Course content

The course is divided into eigth topics, and each of them deals with a distinct part of cognitive psychology. The first topics are related to knowledge about basic cognitive structures, while the latter subjects are more practically oriented.

• Topic 1: How the mind works: The perception of the world around us
• Topic 2: Risk and uncertainty
• Topic 3: Frameworks and forecasts
• Topic 4: Rationality and explanations
• Theme 5: What didn't happen, counterfactual thinking and luck
• Theme 6: Uniqueness and precision
• Theme 7: Creativity
• Theme 8: Problem solving – putting everything together