Decision-making can be regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several alternative possibilities.
Individual and group decision making
Individual Decision Making
Decision making without a group's input or a decision made regardless of the group's opinion is, naturally, an individual decision.
Intellective Tasks
Intellective tasks are problems or decisions for which a demonstrably correct solution exists within a verbal or quantitative conceptual system.
Intellective tasks work for
 Mathematical tasks,
 Creativity tasks
Example
Albert Einstein – theoretical physicist, philosopher and author who is widely regarded as one of the most influential and best known scientists and intellectuals of all time. He is often regarded as the father of modern physics.
Einstein says: “On the other hand, although I have a regular work schedule, I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my head. If my work isn’t going well, I lie down in the middle of a workday and gaze at the ceiling while I listen and visualize what goes on in my imagination.”
Judgmental Tasks
The tasks are evaluative, behavioral, or aesthetic judgments for which no correct answer can be logically determined
Group Decision Making
It requires the group's participation in which there is respect of the opinions and input of the group members in the decision making process.
Examples
 PEMRA 's decision of suspending Geo's license was a group decision. A board if people decided that for solving this problem suspending the license is the right option.
 CIA,National Security Agency and Obama worked together for Abbotabad Operation for Osama Bin Laden.
 Marriage Proposals: In Pakistani society most of the time when a proposal is received for a girl it is a group decision either to accept it or reject it.
 Jury of Ali Azmat,Haqeeqa Kayani and Bushra Ansari in Pak Idol.
Group Decision Making Anatomy:
Functional Theory of Group Decision Making
Skilled decision making groups are more likely use procedures that enhance the way they gather, analyze, and weight information.
Examples:
 Group of friends may gather in university café to decide which part of their project will be covered by whom, who will compile project, who will make slides etc.
 Group of researchers hold a meeting to divide tasks for collecting data, analyze data, and process it, and list it down to provide structured framework of their task division.
There are 5 crucial steps in group decision making process:
1. Orientation
2. Discussion
3. Decision
4. Implementation
5. Evaluation
Orientation:
In this stage, a shared mental modal is developed. Group defines the problem and sets strategy & goals. More time spent in this stage the greater the performance
 Examples:
 Warriors make a clearly defined plan or strategy before war, to attack their rivals.
 Before cricket match, the team plans about the match, about the players of other team, about their strategies etc.
Movie: In the movie The Italian job, the group plans a robbery and their goal is to steal $ 35 million gold bars from the group of gangsters. The team leader who is a lifelong criminal wants to carry out his last heist, meets a professional thief and his protégé. Their meeting included the planning and goal setting. The thief has a professional team of experts. All these members of the group make a mind map of how would they would commit robbery.
Discussion:
In this phase, the information is exchanged and processed among the group members. Memory plays a vital role in this stage.
Examples
A group before writing a report on a car accident will first discuss about the event among themselves, and will then decide what to write and how to write.
Collective Memory – A group’s combined memory
Example: In the above example, the complete story that will form after combining bits and parts of memories of all the members about the accident will be collective memory.
Cross-cueing – Recall of memories improved through group members’ statements.
Example: member A is unable to recall something and member B says something due to which he is able to recall.
Transactive Memory – Information is distributed to various members of the group.
Example: For the presentation of this report they divide report between all members, so that they can memorize it easily and reproduce the information without mistakes.
Movie: After having the plan made, in the discussion phase all the available resources to carry out the decision are discussed. The strengths of the team are examined in the discussion session as who is expert in which area. The group members included the team leader as the professional safe hacker, the technology expert, the getaway driver and the explosives expert as well as the most important “inside man” who knows the details about the group of gangsters from which the gold is to be stolen. The information was distributed among the group members about each and every aspect of the plan.
Decision:
After discussing and analyzing it is now time to reach a final decision
Examples:
Truth win rule e.g. majority rule model:
A group of friends has to decide where to go for eating out and 8 out of 12 say that they want to go to Mc Donalds then they will go there
Delegating decision: e.g a leader decides for the whole group
Statistisized decision: e.g the judges in Masterchef give their points for every participant which are averaged together to reaCH THE FINAL DECISION
Plurality: e.g. Majority win rule
Unanimous: e.g. the group of friends, without voting reach the final decision about the topic for group project
Random: Tossing the coin before cricket match
Movie: A clear cut decision is made in the third phase of group decision making. In this case the decision maker is the individual who consulted the safe-hacker and his team of “experts”. The team members unanimously agreed to the leader and carried out the decision as ordered.
Implementation:
Now comes the phase of taking part in and carrying out the decision by using the knowledge mainly from orientation and specifically from the discussion phase to make decision successful.
Movie: The team reaches the apartment of gangsters to rob the safe with gold plates. According to the plan, and “inside man” (Steve) of the gangsters is in the apartment just above the garage, where he plants a C4 plastic explosive on the ceiling underneath the safe, with Explosive Expert(Left Ear) doing the same just underneath Steve, blowing out the floor and landing the safe in the boat. Then John and the safe hacker break open the safe and load the money in the scuba vehicles and drove away.
Evaluation:
Movie: The team carried out the plan successfully. The management among group members was exceptional. As they were celebrating their success, Steve double crosses the team and stole the gold from them. So, this leads the team members towards another “Planned robbery”.
Who decides --- Individuals or Groups?
Groups with greater informational resources and capacity to process that information may be able to identify better solutions and to detect errors in reasoning. Given this mixture of benefits and liabilities, Victor Vroom’s “normative model of decision making” suggests that different types of situations call for different type of decision making methods. It is a rational model that offers guidance as to when a decision should be made by an individual alone or by a group, and makes suggestions about how much input should be given by each side.
So there are three basic styles & five basic types of decision making: