2.2. BASES TEÓRICAS
2.2.1.8. LA FAMILIA EN EL DERECHO INTERNACIONAL
From evidence considered in this chapter and through theoretical evidence from the literature in the previous chapter, the importance of and efficacy of decision-making have been identified. Decision-making in day-to-day situations is disproportionately higher for later childhood and adolescence than for any other age group. The mechanisms influencing decision-making are varied and their individual and combined role is yet to be understood, underscoring the need for further research in this particular field. There
are a series of factors that may play a role in decision-making and problem solving. This work will focus in part on the role that experience may play on decision-making, as studied through hypothetical problem solving and a study of real life risk situations.
Day-to-day decisions are in part influenced by two mechanisms. The first is
problem solving, part of the cognitive repertoire that leads to decision-making. It encompasses the work of choosing issues in the environment that are of immediate importance and setting goals, finding or designing suitable courses of action, and evaluating and choosing among alternative actions. Decision-making then is the following step, where evaluating and choosing from these courses of action leads to making a choice. The choice is made from the set of alternatives that are presented or that are salient to the decision-maker.
Cognitive factors certainly may play an extensive role in fashioning problem solving and decision-making processes. Human judgement is not always reliable, with several heuristics known to affect decision-making with quick inferences having to be made from our environment and our experience. In certain situations, people have been observed to be overconfident in their choices assuming their reasoning is more likely correct and less fallible, allowing for a greater margin of error. Daily social interactions occur in limited time frames where problem solving and decision-making are required instantly, with efficiency and accuracy suffering in these conditions.
Self-regulation is another cognitive factor identified in playing an important role in problem solving and decision-making. Poor self-regulation is associated with a variety of developmental disorders, consistently being noted as a factor possibly leading to risk taking behaviour. Self-regulation or cognitive regulation develops over the lifespan, with
abilities reaching adult-like levels by mid adolescence. Even with maturation and a refinement in neurocortical systems, optimal decision-making is elusive in adolescence with a high water mark for poor decision-making observed through engagement in risk behaviours, denoting poor problem solving or decision-making. More work is needed to disentangle and further explore the role executive functions play in problem solving and decision-making, and by extension what encourages or discourages adolescent risk taking.
Peers can contribute to riskier choices based on the understanding and expectation of the attitudes of the social group. Personal expectations and social profit from peers both play a distinctly powerful role in decision-making, with the further examination of the role of friendship possibly yielding a large sum of information about the mechanisms involved in decision-making.
Family and environmental factors also seem to be two clearly influential factors in decision-making. Experiences garnered during development within the family unit serve to mould future social interaction and decision-making, with environmental factors such as systematic instruction (e.g. formal education) laying a distinct foundation for problem solving and decision-making and providing a unique experience in and of its own.
The manifestations of developmental processes in social problem solving are explored in the next chapter, looking at self-regulatory control and problem solving skill concurrently. The MEPS is used to tease out differences in social problem solving between primary and secondary school-aged children, providing an insight into the performance and effectiveness of these two age groups in regards to these social skills. Self-regulatory control is observed via the implementation of the Stroop task, which is
used to provide insight into cognitive effects associated with inhibitory control. Vocabulary skill and typical development will be measured. In this study children as young as six-years-old will demonstrate equally effective problem solving skills as adolescents, a unique finding as viewed within the literature. Experience will surface as a key factor that needs to be explored, and by which the ensuing chapter will further explore.
The second empirical chapter, Chapter 5, will build on earlier findings in the previous chapter that surprisingly show that experience appears to be a key factor in shaping problem solving ability. These findings suggest that schooling be looked at in terms of whether it shapes experience in problem solving. Earlier findings on self- regulatory control and social problem skills on a schooled and a non-schooled population will be conducted in Ecuador. Primary and secondary school-aged children’s social problem solving skills will be charted using the MEPS test. As both literate and illiterate populations are going to be studied, the Stroop Colour-Word interference task would not be an appropriate measure, so the Animal Stroop Task developed specifically for non- literate populations to test cognitive inhibition will be used. Vocabulary skill will also be measured as well. The effect of schooling on problem solving will be looked at through a modified version of the MEPS task, a measure of cognitive inhibition, Animal Stroop, and a measure of vocabulary to ascertain typical development, TVIP.
Experience emerges as the running thread that builds throughout this work. In Chapter 6, the mechanisms underlying real decision-making will be looked at via a questionnaire study on a secondary school-aged population (12-18). Real life decisions will be looked at quantitatively in this chapter to explore seven different areas where real
life decision-making occurs establishing patterns of risk in decision-making. Results will be compared with those of the SALSUS (2004) to determine whether the behaviours charted are typical of a Scottish population. Inferences will be made on the results in aims of unpacking the underlying mechanisms shaping adolescent behaviour in particular to their actual experience in real life decision-making. These descriptive patterns of risk will then be contrasted against an experience-based account of the reasoning behind these behaviours in the following chapter.
Chapter 7 will look at real life decision-making through an adolescent perspective as charted importantly through their own knowledge and experience of seven key areas, the same key areas explored in the previous chapter. This will allow for a running comparison between actual reported behaviour and the factors (experience included) that teenagers suggest influence their decision-making. Vignettes encompassing seven different areas where real life decision-making occurs will be used to extrapolate the problem solving and decision-making mechanisms used. The study will attempt to broadly address the most salient factors shaping problem solving and decision-making in day-to-day adolescent environs, with a particular emphasis on the role experience may play on decision-making behaviour. Limitations on findings are acknowledged, with an understanding that only broad trends may be extrapolated from a very complex set of data.
The final chapter will consolidate the novel findings of the four empirical chapters charting the progression of this thesis and the development of experience as a key factor in the mechanisms that shape decision-making. The exciting findings on experience will
be fit within a general model explaining some of the most influential factors shaping decision –making as derived from this body of work.