We will now discuss the final three components that can improve planning and decision making.

SELECTING A MENTAL REPRESENTATION FOR INFORMATION

An important part of many kinds of problem solving is the way that information is represented mentally. Such a mental representation might be in the form of a picture, a list of ideas, an algebraic equation, or yet some other format. Problems that could be solved easily using one form of mental representation are often solved only with difficulty or not at all using another. Sometimes, you will need to supplement your mental representation with an external representation of information. So, for example, in solving a mathematics problem, you may find it helpful to draw a diagram or to set up a series of equations that represent the terms of the problem. Such diagrams can then help your problem solving, especially the way in which you proceed to represent information about the problem in your head. Psychologists studying mental representations have learned some interesting things about them.

Examples

One psychologist studying mental representations, Patricia Linville (1982), looked at the relation between the way in which we represent information about other people and our stereotypes about and prejudices toward these people. One of her most interesting findings is that simple mental representations tend to lead toward extreme judgments about people, whether favorable or unfavorable. The converse also holds: Extreme judgments tend to imply simple representations about people.