Article archive / October 2017
Originally published: . Volume 8, No. 10. Source pages: 14.
November 3 in New Orleans LSU’s Dr. Harman to Describe Decision Science at LPA Workshop
The Louisiana Psych- ological Association will present a Fall Workshop on Friday, November 3, to be held at the DoubleTree by Hilton, New Orleans airport.
A panel discussion on, “Conflict Management at the Individual, Group, and Societal Level: What Psychological Science Tells Us about Charlottesville,” will take place as part of the morning training activities.
Expert practitioners will participate in the panel discussion session, “Ethical and Effective Ways to Deal with Third-Party Payers,” for the afternoon.
Other elements of the one- day educational activity will include the Science Café and a Lunch & Learn experiential training activity with colleagues.
Panelists in the conflict management topic will include Dr. Marva Lewis, Associate Professor at Tulane University whose doctorate is in Sociocultural Psychology. Lewis’ research focuses on the development of culturally valid research methods and measures of racism-based stress during pregnancy, Colorism in African American families, and parental acceptance or rejection of children.
Dr. Tyree Mitchell, Assistant Professor in industrial- organization psychology at the Louisiana Human Resource Education & Workforce Development, College of Human Sciences & Education will also be a panelist. Dr. Mitchell’s work focuses on effective leadership and group functioning, including elements of culture, gender, negotiation and other characteristics important in social interactions.
Louisiana State University Psychology Assistant Professor, Dr. Jason Harmon will add the perspective of conflict from a cognitive, judgment, and decision-making framework. Dr. Harman earned his doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University and the Social and Decision Sciences Department. Dr. Harman’s research involves Dynamic Decision Making, Cognitive Models, Goal Pursuit, and Applied Decision Science.
“Virtually every consequential area of life involves humans making judgments and decisions,” Dr. Harman explained to the Times.
“Two areas we've been working on recently are equity in salary negotiations and environmental decision making. In terms of salary negotiations, we know that women are less likely than men to negotiate for higher salaries, and when they do negotiate they are seen as difficult and demanding whereas men are seen as confident and ambitious for the same behavior,” explained Harman.
“Here at LSU,” he said, “we're helping to expand our knowledge of this important topic by looking specifically at minority women in salary negotiation and how these known issues and solutions may be different depending on not only gender but the interaction of gender and race.”
“In general, humans are amazingly good at making decisions and forming judgments,” he said.
While Dr. Harman said he is an optimist when it comes to human decisions, “… there are factors that introduce biases or predictable errors into the decision making process and the current political climate seems to be a perfect storm of these factors,” he explained.
“In-group biases––us and them, negative emotions– –fear & anger, and biased information are three important factors that influence decision making––usually in a counter productive way–– that seem to be prevalent in the current climate.”
“In practical terms we see this in the observation that conservatives get all of their news from fox news and liberal get their news from other sources. Some friends of mine at Carnegie Mellon University have recently been studying the other side of this bias, information avoidance, the idea that people not only gather information to confirm their beliefs but actively avoid information that could cause internal conflict or negative emotions even when that information could help us make more accurate decisions.”
“Probably the most effective remedy to these biasing factors is exposure; exposure to people from different groups and to ideas and information that doesn't necessarily concur with your beliefs. We've known for a long time about confirmation bias: seeking out information that confirms our beliefs instead of information that challenges them. This is a human bias, not a political one. In fact it was first studied in scientists who should be more aware than anyone the fact that truth can only be advanced by seeking out disconfirming information and gathering confirming information gets you no closer to knowing if an idea is true. “
So overall, the best action we can take to improve our social decision making is exposing ourselves to diverse people and diverse ideas.
Also at the workshop, licensed psychologists Drs. Kathryn Kirkhard, Kim VanGeffen, Rafael Salcedo and Michael Chafetz will discuss dilemmas faced with insurance companies and other third-party payers.
Panelists will review ways to maintain the professional standards and therapeutic alliance with the client when another third-party entity is involved, and share their business and professional approaches to working with and bypassing problems caused by misaligned economic incentives and how to maintain boundaries and ethical standards.
Registration for the conference opens next week at louisianapsychologicalass ociation.org. Continuing professional development credits are offered.
Dr. Jason Harman at his office in the Louisiana State University Psychology Department. Dr. Harman is an expert in decision science and will present on a panel for the Louisiana Psychological Association Fall Workshop in November.
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