Making judgements and decisions

Abstract

Adults are continually confronted with the task of making decisions and rendering judgements in their everyday as well as working lives. It could be argued that judgement and decision making constitutes the major portion of an adult's cognitive activity while awake. A decision involves the making of a specific choice and frequently has an action or implementation aspect to it. A judgement is a cognitive assessment that has an evaluative aspect to it (like/dislike, goodlbad, or strong/weak) but not necessarily an action or implementation aspect. Thus, a court magistrate may judge a defendant to be guilty of the crime of breaking and entering and then decide to sentence the defendant to two years in prison.