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Problem-Solving Strategies and Obstacles

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Sean is a fact-checker and researcher with experience in sociology, field research, and data analytics.

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From deciding what to eat for dinner to considering whether it's the right time to buy a house, problem-solving is a large part of our daily lives. Learn some of the problem-solving strategies that exist and how to use them in real life, along with ways to overcome obstacles that are making it harder to resolve the issues you face.

What Is Problem-Solving?

In cognitive psychology , the term 'problem-solving' refers to the mental process that people go through to discover, analyze, and solve problems.

A problem exists when there is a goal that we want to achieve but the process by which we will achieve it is not obvious to us. Put another way, there is something that we want to occur in our life, yet we are not immediately certain how to make it happen.

Maybe you want a better relationship with your spouse or another family member but you're not sure how to improve it. Or you want to start a business but are unsure what steps to take. Problem-solving helps you figure out how to achieve these desires.

The problem-solving process involves:

• Discovery of the problem
• Deciding to tackle the issue
• Seeking to understand the problem more fully
• Researching available options or solutions
• Taking action to resolve the issue

Before problem-solving can occur, it is important to first understand the exact nature of the problem itself. If your understanding of the issue is faulty, your attempts to resolve it will also be incorrect or flawed.

Problem-Solving Mental Processes

Several mental processes are at work during problem-solving. Among them are:

• Perceptually recognizing the problem
• Representing the problem in memory
• Considering relevant information that applies to the problem
• Identifying different aspects of the problem
• Labeling and describing the problem

Problem-Solving Strategies

There are many ways to go about solving a problem. Some of these strategies might be used on their own, or you may decide to employ multiple approaches when working to figure out and fix a problem.

An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure that, by following certain "rules" produces a solution. Algorithms are commonly used in mathematics to solve division or multiplication problems. But they can be used in other fields as well.

In psychology, algorithms can be used to help identify individuals with a greater risk of mental health issues. For instance, research suggests that certain algorithms might help us recognize children with an elevated risk of suicide or self-harm.

One benefit of algorithms is that they guarantee an accurate answer. However, they aren't always the best approach to problem-solving, in part because detecting patterns can be incredibly time-consuming.

There are also concerns when machine learning is involved—also known as artificial intelligence (AI)—such as whether they can accurately predict human behaviors.

Heuristics are shortcut strategies that people can use to solve a problem at hand. These "rule of thumb" approaches allow you to simplify complex problems, reducing the total number of possible solutions to a more manageable set.

If you find yourself sitting in a traffic jam, for example, you may quickly consider other routes, taking one to get moving once again. When shopping for a new car, you might think back to a prior experience when negotiating got you a lower price, then employ the same tactics.

While heuristics may be helpful when facing smaller issues, major decisions shouldn't necessarily be made using a shortcut approach. Heuristics also don't guarantee an effective solution, such as when trying to drive around a traffic jam only to find yourself on an equally crowded route.

Trial and Error

A trial-and-error approach to problem-solving involves trying a number of potential solutions to a particular issue, then ruling out those that do not work. If you're not sure whether to buy a shirt in blue or green, for instance, you may try on each before deciding which one to purchase.

This can be a good strategy to use if you have a limited number of solutions available. But if there are many different choices available, narrowing down the possible options using another problem-solving technique can be helpful before attempting trial and error.

In some cases, the solution to a problem can appear as a sudden insight. You are facing an issue in a relationship or your career when, out of nowhere, the solution appears in your mind and you know exactly what to do.

Insight can occur when the problem in front of you is similar to an issue that you've dealt with in the past. Although, you may not recognize what is occurring since the underlying mental processes that lead to insight often happen outside of conscious awareness .

Research indicates that insight is most likely to occur during times when you are alone—such as when going on a walk by yourself, when you're in the shower, or when lying in bed after waking up.

How to Apply Problem-Solving Strategies in Real Life

If you're facing a problem, you can implement one or more of these strategies to find a potential solution. Here's how to use them in real life:

• Create a flow chart . If you have time, you can take advantage of the algorithm approach to problem-solving by sitting down and making a flow chart of each potential solution, its consequences, and what happens next.
• Recall your past experiences . When a problem needs to be solved fairly quickly, heuristics may be a better approach. Think back to when you faced a similar issue, then use your knowledge and experience to choose the best option possible.
• Start trying potential solutions . If your options are limited, start trying them one by one to see which solution is best for achieving your desired goal. If a particular solution doesn't work, move on to the next.
• Take some time alone . Since insight is often achieved when you're alone, carve out time to be by yourself for a while. The answer to your problem may come to you, seemingly out of the blue, if you spend some time away from others.

Obstacles to Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is not a flawless process as there are a number of obstacles that can interfere with our ability to solve a problem quickly and efficiently. These obstacles include:

• Assumptions: When dealing with a problem, people can make assumptions about the constraints and obstacles that prevent certain solutions. Thus, they may not even try some potential options.
• Functional fixedness : This term refers to the tendency to view problems only in their customary manner. Functional fixedness prevents people from fully seeing all of the different options that might be available to find a solution.
• Irrelevant or misleading information: When trying to solve a problem, it's important to distinguish between information that is relevant to the issue and irrelevant data that can lead to faulty solutions. The more complex the problem, the easier it is to focus on misleading or irrelevant information.
• Mental set: A mental set is a tendency to only use solutions that have worked in the past rather than looking for alternative ideas. A mental set can work as a heuristic, making it a useful problem-solving tool. However, mental sets can also lead to inflexibility, making it more difficult to find effective solutions.

How to Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills

In the end, if your goal is to become a better problem-solver, it's helpful to remember that this is a process. Thus, if you want to improve your problem-solving skills, following these steps can help lead you to your solution:

• Recognize that a problem exists . If you are facing a problem, there are generally signs. For instance, if you have a mental illness , you may experience excessive fear or sadness, mood changes, and changes in sleeping or eating habits. Recognizing these signs can help you realize that an issue exists.
• Decide to solve the problem . Make a conscious decision to solve the issue at hand. Commit to yourself that you will go through the steps necessary to find a solution.
• Seek to fully understand the issue . Analyze the problem you face, looking at it from all sides. If your problem is relationship-related, for instance, ask yourself how the other person may be interpreting the issue. You might also consider how your actions might be contributing to the situation.
• Research potential options . Using the problem-solving strategies mentioned, research potential solutions. Make a list of options, then consider each one individually. What are some pros and cons of taking the available routes? What would you need to do to make them happen?
• Take action . Select the best solution possible and take action. Action is one of the steps required for change . So, go through the motions needed to resolve the issue.
• Try another option, if needed . If the solution you chose didn't work, don't give up. Either go through the problem-solving process again or simply try another option.

You can find a way to solve your problems as long as you keep working toward this goal—even if the best solution is simply to let go because no other good solution exists.

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Dunbar K. Problem solving . A Companion to Cognitive Science . 2017. doi:10.1002/9781405164535.ch20

Stewart SL, Celebre A, Hirdes JP, Poss JW. Risk of suicide and self-harm in kids: The development of an algorithm to identify high-risk individuals within the children's mental health system . Child Psychiat Human Develop . 2020;51:913-924. doi:10.1007/s10578-020-00968-9

Rosenbusch H, Soldner F, Evans AM, Zeelenberg M. Supervised machine learning methods in psychology: A practical introduction with annotated R code . Soc Personal Psychol Compass . 2021;15(2):e12579. doi:10.1111/spc3.12579

Mishra S. Decision-making under risk: Integrating perspectives from biology, economics, and psychology . Personal Soc Psychol Rev . 2014;18(3):280-307. doi:10.1177/1088868314530517

Csikszentmihalyi M, Sawyer K. Creative insight: The social dimension of a solitary moment . In: The Systems Model of Creativity . 2015:73-98. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-9085-7_7

Chrysikou EG, Motyka K, Nigro C, Yang SI, Thompson-Schill SL. Functional fixedness in creative thinking tasks depends on stimulus modality .  Psychol Aesthet Creat Arts . 2016;10(4):425‐435. doi:10.1037/aca0000050

Huang F, Tang S, Hu Z. Unconditional perseveration of the short-term mental set in chunk decomposition .  Front Psychol . 2018;9:2568. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02568

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Schooler JW, Ohlsson S, Brooks K. Thoughts beyond words: When language overshadows insight. J Experiment Psychol: General . 1993;122:166-183. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.2.166

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Chapter 9 Self-Quiz

Managing Conflict

Please note that this exercise is for self-study, and your instructor will not be able to see your responses.

Quiz Content

Are you sure, select your country.

No-lose Method

This is a democratic approach that results in caregivers and children resolving conflict in a manner in which all parties are satisfied with the solution.

How to use this method:

• Define: All parties communicate their perspectives of the “problem”.
• Brainstorm Solutions: All parties list all possible solutions to resolve the issue.
• Assess Solutions: All parties decide and discuss how they feel about all of the solutions.
• Best Solution: All parties decide upon and agree to implement the best solution.
• Plan in Action: All parties put the best solution into practice.
• Follow-Up: Adult(s) proactively discuss the problem and solution with the child(ren) to revisit the situation [1] .

• Define: The “problem” is that siblings are fighting over a book.
• Brainstorm Solutions: The children can take turns reading the book; each child can read a different book; both children can read with each other at the same time with that book; a parent can remove the book so both children need to find different books.
• Assess Solutions: Both children want to read the book together.
• Best Solution: The children and parent agree that the children will read the book together as long as the children do not fight.  If they fight while reading the book, the parent will remove the book and both children will need to take a break.
• Plan in Action: The children read the book together and do not fight.
• Follow-Up: Later that same day, the parent asks if they both enjoyed reading that book together.  Both children agreed it was an enjoyable time.  The parent praised them for not fighting and for solving the issue.

Key Takeaways

• This method is used to resolve conflict where every party involved discusses their perspective on the problem and possible solutions.
• A solution that satisfies all parties is decided and agreed upon.
• Heath, P. (2013).  Parent-child relations: Context, research, and application  (3rd Ed.). Pearson. ↵

Parenting and Family Diversity Issues Copyright © 2020 by Diana Lang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

7.5 Problem-Solving

Questions to Consider:

• How can determining the best approach to solve a problem help you generate solutions?
• Why do thinkers create multiple solutions to problems?

When we’re solving a problem, whether at work, school, or home, we are being asked to perform multiple, often complex, tasks. The most effective problem-solving approach includes some variation of the following steps:

• Determine the issue(s)
• Recognize other perspectives
• Think of multiple possible results
• Research and evaluate the possibilities
• Select the best result(s)
• Communicate your findings
• Establish logical action items based on your analysis

Determining the best approach to any given problem and generating more than one possible solution to the problem constitutes the complicated process of problem-solving. People who are good at these skills are highly marketable because many jobs consist of a series of problems that need to be solved for production, services, goods, and sales to continue smoothly. Think about what happens when a worker at your favorite coffee shop slips on a wet spot behind the counter, dropping several drinks she just prepared. One problem is the employee may be hurt, in need of attention, and probably embarrassed; another problem is that several customers do not have the drinks they were waiting for; and another problem is that stopping production of drinks (to care for the hurt worker, to clean up her spilled drinks, to make new drinks) causes the line at the cash register to back up. A good manager has to juggle all of these elements to resolve the situation as quickly and efficiently as possible. That resolution and return to standard operations doesn’t happen without a great deal of thinking: prioritizing needs, shifting other workers off one station onto another temporarily, and dealing with all the people involved, from the injured worker to the impatient patrons.

Determining the Best Approach

Faced with a problem-solving opportunity, you must assess the skills you will need to create solutions. Problem-solving can involve many different types of thinking. You may have to call on your creative, analytical, or critical thinking skills—or more frequently, a combination of several different types of thinking—to solve a problem satisfactorily. When you approach a situation, how can you decide what is the best type of thinking to employ? Sometimes the answer is obvious; if you are working a scientific challenge, you likely will use analytical thinking; if you are a design student considering the atmosphere of a home, you may need to tap into creative thinking skills; and if you are an early childhood education major outlining the logistics involved in establishing a summer day camp for children, you may need a combination of critical, analytical, and creative thinking to solve this challenge.

What sort of thinking do you imagine initially helped in the following scenarios? How would the other types of thinking come into resolving these problems?

• Analytical thinking
• Creative thinking
• Critical thinking

Write a one- to two-sentence rationale for why you chose the answers you did on the above survey.

Generating Multiple Solutions

Why do you think it is important to provide multiple solutions when you’re going through the steps to solve problems? Typically, you’ll end up only using one solution at a time, so why expend the extra energy to create alternatives? If you planned a wonderful trip to Europe and had all the sites you want to see planned out and reservations made, you would think that your problem-solving and organizational skills had quite a workout. But what if when you arrived, the country you’re visiting is enmeshed in a public transportation strike experts predict will last several weeks if not longer? A back-up plan would have helped you contemplate alternatives you could substitute for the original plans. You certainly cannot predict every possible contingency—sick children, weather delays, economic downfalls—but you can be prepared for unexpected issues to come up and adapt more easily if you plan for multiple solutions.

Write out at least two possible solutions to these dilemmas:

• Your significant other wants a birthday present—you have no cash.
• You have three exams scheduled on a day when you also need to work.
• Your car needs new tires, an oil change, and gas—you have no cash. (Is there a trend here?)
• You have to pass a running test for your physical education class, but you’re out of shape.

Providing more than one solution to a problem gives people options. You may not need several options, but having more than one solution will allow you to feel more in control and part of the problem-solving process.

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8.5: Problem Solving and Decision-Making in Groups

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• Lisa Coleman, Thomas King, & William Turner
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Learning Objectives

• Discuss the common components and characteristics of problems.
• Explain the five steps of the group problem-solving process.
• Discuss the various influences on decision-making.

Although the steps of problem-solving and decision-making that we will discuss next may seem obvious, we often don’t think to or choose not to use them. Instead, we start working on a problem and later realize we are lost and have to backtrack. I’m sure we’ve all reached a point in a project or task and had the “OK, now what?” moment. I’ve recently taken up some carpentry projects as a functional hobby, and I have developed a great respect for the importance of advanced planning. It’s frustrating to get to a crucial point in building or fixing something only to realize that you have to unscrew a support board that you already screwed in, have to drive back to the hardware store to get something that you didn’t think to get earlier, or have to completely start over. In this section, we will discuss the group problem-solving process, methods of decision making, and influences on these processes.

Group Problem-Solving Process

There are several variations of similar problem-solving models based on US American scholar John Dewey’s reflective thinking process (Bormann & Bormann, 1988). As you read through the steps in the process, think about how we can apply what we have learned regarding the general and specific elements of problems. Some of the following steps are straightforward, and they are things we would logically do when faced with a problem. However, taking a deliberate and systematic approach to problem-solving has been shown to benefit group functioning and performance. A deliberate approach is especially beneficial for groups that do not have an established history of working together and will only be able to meet occasionally. Although a group should attend to each step of the process, group leaders or other group members who facilitate problem-solving should be cautious not to dogmatically follow each element of the process or force a group along. Such a lack of flexibility could limit group member input and negatively affect the group’s cohesion and climate.

Step 1: Define the Problem

Define the problem by considering the three elements shared by every problem: the current undesirable situation , the goal or more desirable situation, and obstacles in the way (Adams & Galanes, 2009). At this stage, group members share what they know about the current situation, without proposing solutions or evaluating the information. Here are some good questions to ask during this stage: What is the current difficulty? How did we come to know that the difficulty exists? Who/what is involved? Why is it meaningful/urgent/important? What have the effects been so far? What, if any, elements of the difficulty require clarification? At the end of this stage, the group should be able to compose a single sentence that summarizes the problem called a problem statement. Avoid wording in the problem statement or question that hints at potential solutions. A small group formed to investigate ethical violations of city officials could use the following problem statement: “Our state does not currently have a mechanism for citizens to report suspected ethical violations by city officials.”

Step 2: Analyze the Problem

During this step, a group should analyze the problem and the group’s relationship to the problem. Whereas the first step involved exploring the “what” related to the problem, this step focuses on the “why.” At this stage, group members can discuss the potential causes of the difficulty. Group members may also want to begin setting out an agenda or timeline for the group’s problem-solving process, looking forward to the other steps. To fully analyze the problem, the group can discuss the five common problem variables discussed before. Here are two examples of questions that the group formed to address ethics violations might ask: Why doesn’t our city have an ethics reporting mechanism? Do cities of similar size have such a mechanism? Once the problem has been analyzed, the group can pose a problem question that will guide the group as it generates possible solutions. “How can citizens report suspected ethical violations of city officials and how will such reports be processed and addressed?” As you can see, the problem question is more complex than the problem statement, since the group has moved on to a more in-depth discussion of the problem during step 2.

Step 3: Generate Possible Solutions

During this step, group members generate possible solutions to the problem. Again, solutions should not be evaluated at this point, only proposed and clarified. The question should be what could we do to address this problem, not what should we do to address it. It is perfectly OK for a group member to question another person’s idea by asking something like “What do you mean?” or “Could you explain your reasoning more?” Discussions at this stage may reveal a need to return to previous steps to better define or more fully analyze a problem. Since many problems are multifaceted, it is necessary for group members to generate solutions for each part of the problem separately, making sure to have multiple solutions for each part. Stopping the solution-generating process prematurely can lead to groupthink. For the problem question previously posed, the group would need to generate solutions for all three parts of the problem included in the question. Possible solutions for the first part of the problem (How can citizens report ethical violations?) may include “online reporting system, e-mail, in-person, anonymously, on-the-record,” and so on. Possible solutions for the second part of the problem (How will reports be processed?) may include “daily by a newly appointed ethics officer, weekly by a nonpartisan nongovernment employee,” and so on. Possible solutions for the third part of the problem (How will reports be addressed?) may include “by a newly appointed ethics commission, by the accused’s supervisor, by the city manager,” and so on.

Step 4: Evaluate Solutions

During this step, solutions can be critically evaluated based on their credibility, completeness, and worth. Once the potential solutions have been narrowed based on more obvious differences in relevance and/or merit, the group should analyze each solution based on its potential effects—especially negative effects. Groups that are required to report the rationale for their decision or whose decisions may be subject to public scrutiny would be wise to make a set list of criteria for evaluating each solution. Additionally, solutions can be evaluated based on how well they fit with the group’s charge and the abilities of the group. To do this, group members may ask, “Does this solution live up to the original purpose or mission of the group?” and “Can the solution actually be implemented with our current resources and connections?” and “How will this solution be supported, funded, enforced, and assessed?” Secondary tensions and substantive conflict, two concepts discussed earlier, emerge during this step of problem-solving, and group members will need to employ effective critical thinking and listening skills.

Decision-making is part of the larger process of problem-solving and it plays a prominent role in this step. While there are several fairly similar models for problem-solving, there are many varied decision-making techniques that groups can use. For example, to narrow the list of proposed solutions, group members may decide by majority vote, by weighing the pros and cons, or by discussing them until a consensus is reached. There are also more complex decision-making models like the “six hats method,” which we will discuss later. Once the final decision is reached, the group leader or facilitator should confirm that the group is in agreement. It may be beneficial to let the group break for a while or even to delay the final decision until a later meeting to allow people time to evaluate it outside of the group context.

Step 5: Implement and Assess the Solution

Implementing the solution requires some advanced planning, and it should not be rushed unless the group is operating under strict time restraints or delay may lead to some kind of harm. Although some solutions can be implemented immediately, others may take days, months, or years. As was noted earlier, it may be beneficial for groups to poll those who will be affected by the solution as to their opinion of it or even do a pilot test to observe the effectiveness of the solution and how people react to it. Before implementation, groups should also determine how and when they would assess the effectiveness of the solution by asking, “How will we know if the solution is working or not?” Since solution assessment will vary based on whether or not the group is disbanded, groups should also consider the following questions: If the group disbands after implementation, who will be responsible for assessing the solution? If the solution fails, will the same group reconvene or will a new group be formed?

Certain elements of the solution may need to be delegated out to various people inside and outside the group. Group members may also be assigned to implement a particular part of the solution based on their role in the decision-making or because it connects to their area of expertise. Likewise, group members may be tasked with publicizing the solution or “selling” it to a particular group of stakeholders. Last, the group should consider its future. In some cases, the group will get to decide if it will stay together and continue working on other tasks or if it will disband. In other cases, outside forces determine the group’s fate.

“Getting Competent”: Problem Solving and Group Presentations

Giving a group presentation requires that individual group members and the group as a whole solve many problems and make many decisions. Although having more people involved in a presentation increases logistical difficulties and has the potential to create more conflict, a well-prepared and well-delivered group presentation can be more engaging and effective than a typical presentation. The main problems facing a group giving a presentation are (1) dividing responsibilities, (2) coordinating schedules and time management, and (3) working out the logistics of the presentation delivery.

In terms of dividing responsibilities, assigning individual work at the first meeting and then trying to fit it all together before the presentation (which is what many college students do when faced with a group project) is not the recommended method. Integrating content and visual aids created by several different people into a seamless final product takes time and effort, and the person “stuck” with this job at the end usually ends up developing some resentment toward his or her group members. While it’s OK for group members to do work independently outside of group meetings, spend time working together to help set up some standards for content and formatting expectations that will help make later integration of work easier. Taking the time to complete one part of the presentation together can help set those standards for later individual work. Discuss the roles that various group members will play openly so there isn’t role confusion. There could be one point person for keeping track of the group’s progress and schedule, one point person for communication, one point person for content integration, one point person for visual aids, and so on. Each person shouldn’t do all that work on his or her own but help focus the group’s attention on his or her specific area during group meetings (Stanton, 2009).

Scheduling group meetings is one of the most challenging problems groups face, given people’s busy lives. From the beginning, it should be clearly communicated that the group needs to spend considerable time in face-to-face meetings, and group members should know that they may have to make an occasional sacrifice to attend. Especially important is the commitment to scheduling time to rehearse the presentation. Consider creating a contract of group guidelines that include expectations for meeting attendance to increase group members’ commitment.

Group presentations require members to navigate many logistics of their presentation. While it may be easier for a group to assign each member to create a five-minute segment and then transition from one person to the next, this is definitely not the most engaging method. Creating a master presentation and then assigning individual speakers creates a more fluid and dynamic presentation and allows everyone to become familiar with the content, which can help if a person doesn’t show up to present and during the question-and-answer section. Once the content of the presentation is complete, figure out introductions, transitions, visual aids, and the use of time and space (Stanton, 2012). In terms of introductions, figure out if one person will introduce all the speakers at the beginning, if speakers will introduce themselves at the beginning, or if introductions will occur as the presentation progresses. In terms of transitions, make sure each person has included in his or her speaking notes when presentation duties switch from one person to the next. Visual aids have the potential to cause hiccups in a group presentation if they aren’t fluidly integrated. Practicing with visual aids and having one person control them may help prevent this. Know how long your presentation is and know how you’re going to use the space. Presenters should know how long the whole presentation should be and how long each of their segments should be so that everyone can share the responsibility of keeping time. Also, consider the size and layout of the presentation space. You don’t want presenters huddled in a corner until it’s their turn to speak or trapped behind furniture when their turn comes around.

• Of the three main problems facing group presenters, which do you think is the most challenging and why?
• Why do you think people tasked with a group presentation (especially students) prefer to divide the parts up and have members work on them independently before coming back together and integrating each part? What problems emerge from this method? In what ways might developing a master presentation and then assign parts to different speakers be better than the more divided method? What are the drawbacks to the master presentation method?

Specific Decision-Making Techniques

Some decision-making techniques involve determining a course of action based on the level of agreement among the group members. These methods include majority , expert , authority , and consensus rule . Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\) “Pros and Cons of Agreement-Based Decision-Making Techniques” reviews the pros and cons of each of these methods.

Majority rule is a commonly used decision-making technique in which a majority (one-half plus one) must agree before a decision is made . A show-of-hands vote, a paper ballot, or an electronic voting system can determine the majority choice. Many decision-making bodies, including the US House of Representatives, Senate, and Supreme Court, use majority rule to make decisions, which shows that it is often associated with democratic decision-making since each person gets one vote and each vote counts equally. Of course, other individuals and mediated messages can influence a person’s vote, but since the voting power is spread out over all group members, it is not easy for one person or party to take control of the decision-making process. In some cases—for example, to override a presidential veto or to amend the constitution—a supermajority of two-thirds may be required to make a decision.

Minority rule is a decision-making technique in which a designated authority or expert has the final say over a decision and may or may not consider the input of other group members . When a designated expert makes a decision by minority rule, there may be buy-in from others in the group, especially if the members of the group didn’t have relevant knowledge or expertise. When a designated authority makes decisions, buy-in will vary based on group members’ level of respect for the authority. For example, decisions made by an elected authority may be more accepted by those who elected him or her than by those who didn’t. As with majority rule, this technique can be time-saving. Unlike majority rule, one person or party can have control over the decision-making process. This type of decision-making is more similar to that used by monarchs and dictators. An obvious negative consequence of this method is that the needs or wants of one person can override the needs and wants of the majority. A minority deciding for the majority has led to negative consequences throughout history. The white Afrikaner minority that ruled South Africa for decades instituted apartheid, which was a system of racial segregation that disenfranchised and oppressed the majority population. The quality of the decision and its fairness really depends on the designated expert or authority.

Consensus rule is a decision-making technique in which all members of the group must agree on the same decision . On rare occasions, a decision may be ideal for all group members, which can lead to a unanimous agreement without further debate and discussion. Although this can be positive, be cautious that this isn’t a sign of groupthink. More typically, the consensus is reached only after a lengthy discussion. On the plus side, consensus often leads to high-quality decisions due to the time and effort it takes to get everyone in agreement. Group members are also more likely to be committed to the decision because of their investment in reaching it. On the negative side, the ultimate decision is often one that all group members can live with but not one that’s ideal for all members. Additionally, the process of arriving at a consensus also includes conflict, as people debate ideas and negotiate the interpersonal tensions that may result.

“Getting Critical”: Six Hats Method of Decision Making

Edward de Bono developed the Six Hats method of thinking in the late 1980s, and it has since become a regular feature in decision-making training in business and professional contexts (de Bono, 1985). The method’s popularity lies in its ability to help people get out of habitual ways of thinking and to allow group members to play different roles and see a problem or decision from multiple points of view. The basic idea is that each of the six hats represents a different way of thinking, and when we figuratively switch hats, we switch the way we think. The hats and their style of thinking are as follows:

• White hat. Objective—focuses on seeking information such as data and facts and then processes that information in a neutral way.
• Red hat. Emotional—uses intuition, gut reactions, and feelings to judge information and suggestions.
• Black hat. Negative—focus on potential risks, point out possibilities for failure, and evaluates information cautiously and defensively.
• Yellow hat. Positive—is optimistic about suggestions and future outcomes gives constructive and positive feedback, points out benefits and advantages.
• Green hat. Creative—try to generate new ideas and solutions, think “outside the box.”
• Blue hat. Philosophical—uses metacommunication to organize and reflect on the thinking and communication taking place in the group, facilitates who wears what hat and when group members change hats.

Specific sequences or combinations of hats can be used to encourage strategic thinking. For example, the group leader may start off wearing the Blue Hat and suggest that the group start their decision-making process with some “White Hat thinking” in order to process through facts and other available information. During this stage, the group could also process through what other groups have done when faced with a similar problem. Then the leader could begin an evaluation sequence starting with two minutes of “Yellow Hat thinking” to identify potential positive outcomes, then “Black Hat thinking” to allow group members to express reservations about ideas and point out potential problems, then “Red Hat thinking” to get people’s gut reactions to the previous discussion, then “Green Hat thinking” to identify other possible solutions that are more tailored to the group’s situation or completely new approaches. At the end of a sequence, the Blue Hat would want to summarize what was said and begin a new sequence. To successfully use this method, the person wearing the Blue Hat should be familiar with different sequences and plan some of the thinking patterns ahead of time based on the problem and the group members. Each round of thinking should be limited to a certain time frame (two to five minutes) to keep the discussion moving.

• This decision-making method has been praised because it allows group members to “switch gears” in their thinking and allows for role-playing, which lets people express ideas more freely. How can this help enhance critical thinking? Which combination of hats do you think would be best for a critical thinking sequence?
• What combinations of hats might be useful if the leader wanted to break the larger group up into pairs and why? For example, what kind of thinking would result from putting Yellow and Red together, Black and White together, or Red and White together, and so on?
• Based on your preferred ways of thinking and your personality, which hat would be the best fit for you? Which would be the most challenging? Why?

Influences on Decision Making

The personalities of group members, especially leaders and other active members, affect the climate of the group. Group member personalities can be categorized based on where they fall on a continuum anchored by the following descriptors: dominant/submissive, friendly/unfriendly, and instrumental/emotional (Cragan & Wright, 1999). The more group members there are in any extreme of these categories, the more likely it that the group climate will also shift to resemble those characteristics.

• Dominant versus submissive. Group members that are more dominant act more independently and directly, initiate conversations, take up more space, make more direct eye contact, seek leadership positions, and take control over decision-making processes. More submissive members are reserved, contribute to the group only when asked to, avoid eye contact, and leave their personal needs and thoughts unvoiced or give in to the suggestions of others.
• Friendly versus unfriendly. Group members on the friendly side of the continuum find a balance between talking and listening, don’t try to win at the expense of other group members, are flexible but not weak, and value democratic decision-making. Unfriendly group members are disagreeable, indifferent, withdrawn, and selfish, which leads them to either not invest in decision making or direct it in their own interest rather than in the interest of the group.
• Instrumental versus emotional. Instrumental group members are emotionally neutral, objective, analytical, task-oriented, and committed followers, which leads them to work hard and contribute to the group’s decision-making as long as it is orderly and follows agreed-on rules. Emotional group members are creative, playful, independent, unpredictable, and expressive, which leads them to make rash decisions, resist group norms or decision-making structures and switch often from relational to task focus.

Domestic Diversity and Group Communication

While it is becoming more likely that we will interact in small groups with international diversity, we are guaranteed to interact in groups that are diverse in terms of the cultural identities found within a single country or the subcultures found within a larger cultural group.

Gender stereotypes sometimes influence the roles that people play within a group. For example, the stereotype that women are more nurturing than men may lead group members (both male and female) to expect that women will play the role of supporters or harmonizers within the group. Since women have primarily performed secretarial work since the 1900s, it may also be expected that women will play the role of the recorder. In both of these cases, stereotypical notions of gender place women in roles that are typically not as valued in group communication. The opposite is true for men. In terms of leadership, despite notable exceptions, research shows that men fill an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount of leadership positions. We are socialized to see certain behaviors by men as indicative of leadership abilities, even though they may not be. For example, men are often perceived to contribute more to a group because they tend to speak first when asked a question or to fill a silence and are perceived to talk more about task-related matters than relationally oriented matters. Both of these tendencies create a perception that men are more engaged with the task. Men are also socialized to be more competitive and self-congratulatory, meaning that their communication may be seen as dedicated and their behaviors seen as powerful, and that when their work isn’t noticed they will be more likely to make it known to the group rather than take silent credit. Even though we know that the relational elements of a group are crucial for success, even in high-performance teams, that work is not as valued in our society as task-related work.

Despite the fact that some communication patterns and behaviors related to our typical (and stereotypical) gender socialization affects how we interact in and form perceptions of others in groups, the differences in group communication that used to be attributed to gender in early group communication research seem to be diminishing. This is likely due to the changing organizational cultures from which much group work emerges, which have now had more than sixty years to adjust to women in the workplace. It is also due to a more nuanced understanding of gender-based research, which doesn’t take a stereotypical view from the beginning as many of the early male researchers did. Now, instead of biological sex being assumed as a factor that creates inherent communication differences, group communication scholars see that men and women both exhibit a range of behaviors that are more or less feminine or masculine. It is these gendered behaviors, and not a person’s gender, that seem to have more of an influence on perceptions of group communication. Interestingly, group interactions are still masculinist in that male and female group members prefer a more masculine communication style for task leaders and that both males and females in this role are more likely to adapt to a more masculine communication style. Conversely, men who take on social-emotional leadership behaviors adopt a more feminine communication style. In short, it seems that although masculine communication traits are more often associated with high-status positions in groups, both men and women adapt to this expectation and are evaluated similarly (Haslett & Ruebush, 1999).

Other demographic categories are also influential in group communication and decision-making. In general, group members have an easier time communicating when they are more similar than different in terms of race and age. This ease of communication can make group work more efficient, but the homogeneity, meaning the members are more similar, may sacrifice some creativity. n general, groups that are culturally heterogeneous have better overall performance than more homogenous groups (Haslett & Ruebush, 1999). These groups benefit from the diversity of perspectives in terms of the quality of decision-making and creativity of output.

The benefits and challenges that come with the diversity of group members are important to consider. Since we will all work in diverse groups, we should be prepared to address potential challenges in order to reap the benefits. Diverse groups may be wise to coordinate social interactions outside of group time in order to find common ground that can help facilitate interaction and increase group cohesion. We should be sensitive but not let sensitivity create fear of “doing something wrong” which then prevents us from having meaningful interactions.

Key Takeaways

• Every problem has common components: an undesirable situation, the desired situation, and obstacles between the undesirable and desirable situations. Every problem also has a set of characteristics that vary among problems, including task difficulty, number of possible solutions, group member interest in the problem, group familiarity with the problem, and the need for solution acceptance.
• Define the problem by creating a problem statement that summarizes it.
• Analyze the problem and create a problem question that can guide solution generation.
• Generate possible solutions. Possible solutions should be offered and listed without stopping to evaluate each one.
• Evaluate the solutions based on their credibility, completeness, and worth. Groups should also assess the potential effects of the narrowed list of solutions.
• Implement and assess the solution. Aside from enacting the solution, groups should determine how they will know the solution is working or not.
• Common decision-making techniques include majority rule, minority rule, and consensus rule. Only a majority, usually one-half plus one, must agree before a decision is made with majority rule. With minority rule, designated authority or expert has final say over a decision, and the input of group members may or may not be invited or considered. With consensus rule, all members of the group must agree on the same decision.
• Situational factors include the degree of freedom a group has to make its own decisions, the level of uncertainty facing the group and its task, the size of the group, the group’s access to information, and the origin and urgency of the problem.
• Personality influences on decision making include a person’s value orientation (economic, aesthetic, theoretical, political, or religious), and personality traits (dominant/submissive, friendly/unfriendly, and instrumental/emotional).
• Cultural influences on decision making include the heterogeneity or homogeneity of the group makeup; cultural values and characteristics such as individualism/collectivism, power distance, and high-/low-context communication styles; and gender and age differences.
• Scenario 1. Task difficulty is high, the number of possible solutions is high, group interest in the problem is high, group familiarity with the problem is low, and the need for solution acceptance is high.
• Scenario 2. Task difficulty is low, the number of possible solutions is low, group interest in the problem is low, group familiarity with the problem is high, and the need for solution acceptance is low.
• Scenario 1: Academic. A professor asks his or her class to decide whether the final exam should be an in-class or take-home exam.
• Scenario 2: Professional. A group of coworkers must decide which person from their department to nominate for a company-wide award.
• Scenario 3: Personal. A family needs to decide how to divide the belongings and estate of a deceased family member who did not leave a will.
• Scenario 4: Civic. A local branch of a political party needs to decide what five key issues it wants to include in the national party’s platform.
• Group communication researchers have found that heterogeneous groups (composed of diverse members) have advantages over homogenous (more similar) groups. Discuss a group situation you have been in where diversity enhanced your and/or the group’s experience.

Adams, K., and Gloria G. Galanes, Communicating in Groups: Applications and Skills , 7th ed. (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2009), 220–21.

Allen, B. J., Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity , 2nd ed. (Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2011), 5.

Bormann, E. G., and Nancy C. Bormann, Effective Small Group Communication , 4th ed. (Santa Rosa, CA: Burgess CA, 1988), 112–13.

Clarke, G., “The Silent Generation Revisited,” Time, June 29, 1970, 46.

Cragan, J. F., and David W. Wright, Communication in Small Group Discussions: An Integrated Approach , 3rd ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1991), 77–78.

de Bono, E., Six Thinking Hats (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1985).

Delbecq, A. L., and Andrew H. Ven de Ven, “A Group Process Model for Problem Identification and Program Planning,” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 7, no. 4 (1971): 466–92.

Haslett, B. B., and Jenn Ruebush, “What Differences Do Individual Differences in Groups Make?: The Effects of Individuals, Culture, and Group Composition,” in The Handbook of Group Communication Theory and Research , ed. Lawrence R. Frey (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999), 133.

Napier, R. W., and Matti K. Gershenfeld, Groups: Theory and Experience , 7th ed. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), 292.

Osborn, A. F., Applied Imagination (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959).

Spranger, E., Types of Men (New York: Steckert, 1928).

Stanton, C., “How to Deliver Group Presentations: The Unified Team Approach,” Six Minutes Speaking and Presentation Skills , November 3, 2009, accessed August 28, 2012, http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/group-presentations-unified-team-approach .

Thomas, D. C., “Cultural Diversity and Work Group Effectiveness: An Experimental Study,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 30, no. 2 (1999): 242–63.

Welcome to Gordon Training International

Gti has been helping people all over the world have better relationships at work, at home, and in schools through the gordon model skills., we hope to help you, too.

What Can You Win with the No Lose Method?

Excerpted from L.E.T. book by Dr. Thomas Gordon

What ARE the Benefits of the No-Lose Method?

• Increased Commitment to Carry Out the Decision

Everyone has had the experience of feeling a strong commitment to carry out a decision because of having had the chance to participate in formulating that decision. With a voice in the decision-making process, a person somehow has more motivation to implement the decision than if someone else unilaterally makes it. Psychologists call this commonsense idea the “Principle of Participation.” It affirms the well-known phenomenon that when people participate in the problem-solving process and develop a mutually acceptable solution, they get the feeling it is “their” decision. They were responsible for helping to shape the decision, so they feel responsible for seeing that it works.

This heightened sense of responsibility or commitment usually means that less effort is required from the leader to enforce compliance—less need for the leader to play the cop, as I pointed out earlier. Obviously, this yields a distinct saving of time for the leader and makes available more “productive work” time. A related benefit is greater organizational efficiency: when decisions are made, they get implemented; when conflicts are resolved, they stay resolved.

• Higher-Quality Decisions

Method III enlists the creativity, experience, and brain-power of all parties involved in a conflict. It follows that this method would often produce high-quality decisions. And so it does. “Two heads are better than one” makes particularly good sense in conflict resolution because the needs of both (or all) parties must be accurately represented. Also, with both parties participating in the solution-generating, the odds are that they will brainstorm a larger number of creative solutions. Finally, the presence of both parties is necessary so each can judge which solution best meets their needs.

It would be inconceivable to me, for example, to try to resolve a conflict between myself and one of my children (or my wife, or one of my group members) without their active participation—stating their needs and understanding mine, offering their solutions and hearing mine, evaluating each solution against their experience and considering my evaluations based on my own experience. When I find myself in conflict with others, I want their help so we can find our way out of that conflict, with nobody losing. With such help I’ll trust the quality of the solution much more than I’d trust one that I selected entirely on my own.

• Warmer Relationships

One of the most predictable outcomes of the No-Lose Method is that the parties to the conflict end up feeling good about each other. The resentment that usually follows either of the win-lose methods is absent in Method III. Instead, after a successful No-Lose decision, there emerges a positive feeling of liking each other—yes, even loving each other. It probably comes from each person appreciating that the other was willing to be considerate of their needs and took the time to search for a solution that would make each happy. What better proof of caring?

• Quicker Decisions

Have you ever experienced getting into a conflict with someone and then having that conflict go unresolved for weeks or months because you couldn’t for the life of you figure out a solution? Then you found the courage to approach the person and invite him to join with you to try and resolve it. Much to your surprise, you reached an amicable and mutually acceptable solution in a matter of minutes.

This is not unusual. The No-Lose Method often helps people in conflict get their feelings and needs out in the open, honestly face the issues, and explore possible solutions. Once started, the problem-solving process can lead quickly to a no-lose solution because it helps bring out a lot of data (facts and feelings) unavailable to either of the parties operating separately.

Then, too, many conflicts between people are very complex, particularly in organizations where differences arise over complicated technological matters, sensitive financial issues, and sticky human problems. Often these conflicts are resolved much more quickly by involving everyone who possesses relevant data or who might be affected by the decision.

• No “Selling” Is Required

You will recall how Method I usually requires that leaders spend time selling their decisions to those who must carry them out, over and above the time involved in simply making the decision. This second step is seldom required in Method III, obviously, because the final decision, once accepted by all the parties to the conflict, needs no selling afterwards—everyone is already sold.

Beyond Intractability

The Hyper-Polarization Challenge to the Conflict Resolution Field: A Joint BI/CRQ Discussion BI and the Conflict Resolution Quarterly invite you to participate in an online exploration of what those with conflict and peacebuilding expertise can do to help defend liberal democracies and encourage them live up to their ideals.

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By Brad Spangler

January 2013

Original Publication September 2003, updated January 2013 by Heidi Burgess

Win-win, win-lose, and lose-lose are game theory terms that refer to the possible outcomes of a game or dispute involving two sides, and more importantly, how each side perceives their outcome relative to their standing before the game. For example, a "win" results when the outcome of a negotiation is better than expected, a "loss" when the outcome is worse than expected. Two people may receive the same outcome in measurable terms, say $10, but for one side that may be a loss, while for the other it is a win. In other words, expectations determine one's perception of any given result.

Win-win outcomes occur when each side of a dispute feels they have won. Since both sides benefit from such a scenario, any resolutions to the conflict are likely to be accepted voluntarily. The process of integrative bargaining aims to achieve, through cooperation, win-win outcomes.

Win-lose situations result when only one side perceives the outcome as positive. Thus, win-lose outcomes are less likely to be accepted voluntarily. Distributive bargaining processes, based on a principle of competition between participants, are more likely than integrative bargaining to end in win-lose outcomes--or they may result in a situation where each side gets part of what he or she wanted, but not as much as they might have gotten if they had used integrative bargaining.

Lose-lose means that all parties end up being worse off. An example of this would be a budget-cutting negotiation in which all parties lose money.  The intractable budget debates in Congress in 2012-13 are example of lose-lose situations.  Cuts are essential--the question is where they will be made and who will be hurt.   In some lose-lose situations, all parties understand that losses are unavoidable and that they will be evenly distributed. In such situations, lose-lose outcomes can be preferable to win-lose outcomes because the distribution is at least considered to be fair.[1]

In other situations, though, lose-lose outcomes occur when win-win outcomes might have been possible. The classic example of this is called the prisoner's dilemma in which two prisoners must decide whether to confess to a crime. Neither prisoner knows what the other will do. The best outcome for prisoner A occurs if he/she confesses, while prisoner B keeps quiet. In this case, the prisoner who confesses and implicates the other is rewarded by being set free, and the other (who stayed quiet) receives the maximum sentence, as s/he didn't cooperate with the police, yet they have enough evidence to convict. (This is a win-lose outcome.) The same goes for prisoner B. But if both prisoners confess (trying to take advantage of their partner), they each serve the maximum sentence (a lose-lose outcome). If neither confesses, they both serve a reduced sentence (a win-win outcome, although the win is not as big as the one they would have received in the win-lose scenario).

This situation occurs fairly often, as win-win outcomes can only be identified through cooperative (or integrative) bargaining, and are likely to be overlooked if negotiations take a competitive distributive) stance.

The key thing to remember is that any negotiation may be reframed (placed in a new context) so that expectations are lowered. In the prisoner's dilemma, for example, if both prisoners are able to perceive the reduced sentence as a win rather than a loss, then the outcome is a win-win situation. Thus, with lowered expectations, it may be possible for negotiators to craft win-win solutions out of a potentially lose-lose situation. However, this requires that the parties sacrifice their original demands for lesser ones.

[1] The above definitions were drawn from: Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess, Encyclopedia of Conflict Resolution  (Denver: ABC-CLIO, 1997), 306-307, 309-310. < http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Conflict-Resolution-Heidi-Burgess/dp/0874368391 >.

Use the following to cite this article: Spangler, Brad. "Win-Win, Win-Lose, and Lose-Lose Situations." Beyond Intractability . Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: June 2003 < http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/win-lose >.

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No lose conflict solving

Two main methods are highly recommended to use for solving conflicts in teacher-student relationships. One that is used in Gordon’s T.E.T. programs and the other is Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Both of these methods help to solve problems by keeping mutually satisfying relationship between partners.

What is common in these no-lose conflict solving methods is that

both are based on

• the value: both side’s wellbeing is of equal worth in a conflict,
• non-judgemental attitude, empathy (not sympathy nor antipathy) and
• certain skills: using active listening, and expressing I-Messages.

In what case do we prefer using Gordon’s model? If…

• there is only limited time
• it is possible to modify physical environment to prevent problems and conflicts
• it is important to decide who is the owner of the problem
• it is essential to recognize and avoid the 12 Communication Roadblocks
• the aim is to get a rule-setting process
• the emphasis is on the problem/conflict solving itself

How to use it?

The basic version of Gordon’s method is that first it needs to labelled who is the problem owner, then comes the 3 STEPS of communication:

• Non-judgemental description of the other’s behaviour (factual description of what happened without any adjectives)
• Expressing feelings (how did I feel as a result of the other’s actions)
• Identification of the tangible/concrete effect of the others’ behaviour on us (sentences that start with "This made me…")

In what case do we prefer using NVC? If…

• more time we have for understanding the roots of the conflict
• we would like to have/keep a meaningful deeper relationship
• we want to focus on the relationship between us (more therapeutic approach)
• we want to focus on one’s own needs and on the other’s as well
• having the knowledge, that everyone takes responsibility about her/his feelings
• the emphasis is on the process between us in the present 

How to use NVC?

Briefly: Keep role changes (use empathic listening and expressing) as many times as needed to understand each other.

Using empathy and active listening (clarifying, questioning with NVC’s 4 steps) to listen to the other, and using 4 steps to express our inner world.

Applying the NVC’s 4 STEPS:

Observation of behaviour or events (without interpretation or evaluation being mixed in)

Expressing our feelings (avoid evaluating expressions)

Expressing our needs (NVC includes a literacy of human needs and a listed itinerary of basic universal needs)

• A clear specific request for connection or action (I-Messages, or Strategies) 

Alternatively, there is another Gordon’s no-lose conflict solving method in 6 STEPS: When shell we use this model? If

• we are not or not much involved emotionally in the conflict (we have no specific feelings about the conflict or the people in it)
• The problem/conflict is of a materialistic type (the issue is not about different feelings, personalities but concrete actions or objects, like if two students need the only available laptop for use)

Step 1 :Identifying and Defining the Problem Together

Warning: your statements of the problem should be expressed in a way that does not communicate blame or judgment. I –messages are recommended.

Step 2: Generating Alternative Solutions

Both parts should be creative in generating possible solutions.

It’s important to avoid evaluation until a number of possible solutions are proposed.

Step 3: Evaluating the Alternative Solutions

It is important by this phase to take special care that both you and the other person are honest and use active listening.

Step 4: Choose a Solution

In this phase both people agree on a solution or combination of solutions. Someone needs to state the solutions to make sure that both agree. Don't try to push a solution - both should choose freely.

Step 5: Plan for and Take Action

In this step, you both decide Who does What by When to carry out the agreed-on solution. It's best to trust that both will do what they agreed on instead of talking about what will happen if they don't.

Step 6: Check Results

Both need to agree to check back at a later time to make sure the solution worked/is working for each of them.

User's guide, equipment:

• List of NVC universal needs
• NVC List of words for feelings
• List of 12 Communication Roadblocks of T.E.T. 

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February 1, 2024

18 min read

Brains Are Not Required When It Comes to Thinking and Solving Problems—Simple Cells Can Do It

Tiny clumps of cells show basic cognitive abilities, and some animals can remember things after losing their head

By Rowan Jacobsen

Natalya Balnova

T he planarian is nobody's idea of a genius. A flatworm shaped like a comma, it can be found wriggling through the muck of lakes and ponds worldwide. Its pin-size head has a microscopic structure that passes for a brain. Its two eyespots are set close together in a way that makes it look cartoonishly confused. It aspires to nothing more than life as a bottom-feeder.

But the worm has mastered one task that has eluded humanity's greatest minds: perfect regeneration. Tear it in half, and its head will grow a new tail while its tail grows a new head. After a week two healthy worms swim away.

Growing a new head is a neat trick. But it's the tail end of the worm that intrigues Tufts University biologist Michael Levin. He studies the way bodies develop from single cells , among other things, and his research led him to suspect that the intelligence of living things lies outside their brains to a surprising degree. Substantial smarts may be in the cells of a worm's rear end, for instance. “All intelligence is really collective intelligence, because every cognitive system is made of some kind of parts,” Levin says. An animal that can survive the complete loss of its head was Levin's perfect test subject.

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In their natural state planaria prefer the smooth and sheltered to the rough and open. Put them in a dish with a corrugated bottom, and they will huddle against the rim. But in his laboratory, about a decade ago, Levin trained some planaria to expect yummy bits of liver puree that he dripped into the middle of a ridged dish. They soon lost all fear of the rough patch, eagerly crossing the divide to get the treats. He trained other worms in the same way but in smooth dishes. Then he decapitated them all.

Levin discarded the head ends and waited two weeks while the tail ends regrew new heads. Next he placed the regenerated worms in corrugated dishes and dripped liver into the center. Worms that had lived in a smooth dish in their previous incarnation were reluctant to move. But worms regenerated from tails that had lived in rough dishes learned to go for the food more quickly. Somehow, despite the total loss of their brains, those planaria had retained the memory of the liver reward. But how? Where?

It turns out that regular cells—not just highly specialized brain cells such as neurons—have the ability to store information and act on it. Now Levin has shown that the cells do so by using subtle changes in electric fields as a type of memory. These revelations have put the biologist at the vanguard of a new field called basal cognition. Researchers in this burgeoning area have spotted hallmarks of intelligence—learning, memory, problem-solving—outside brains as well as within them.

Until recently, most scientists held that true cognition arrived with the first brains half a billion years ago. Without intricate clusters of neurons, behavior was merely a kind of reflex. But Levin and several other researchers believe otherwise. He doesn't deny that brains are awesome, paragons of computational speed and power. But he sees the differences between cell clumps and brains as ones of degree, not kind. In fact, Levin suspects that cognition probably evolved as cells started to collaborate to carry out the incredibly difficult task of building complex organisms and then got souped-up into brains to allow animals to move and think faster.

That position is being embraced by researchers in a variety of disciplines, including roboticists such as Josh Bongard, a frequent Levin collaborator who runs the Morphology, Evolution, and Cognition Laboratory at the University of Vermont. “Brains were one of the most recent inventions of Mother Nature, the thing that came last,” says Bongard, who hopes to build deeply intelligent machines from the bottom up. “It's clear that the body matters, and then somehow you add neural cognition on top. It's the cherry on the sundae. It's not the sundae.”

Head cells in the flatworm Dugesia japonica have different bioelectric voltages than tail cells do. Switch the voltages around and cut off the tail, and the head will regenerate a second head. Credit: Michael Levin

In recent years interest in basal cognition has exploded as researchers have recognized example after example of surprisingly sophisticated intelligence at work across life's kingdoms, no brain required. For artificial-intelligence scientists such as Bongard, basal cognition offers an escape from the trap of assuming that future intelligences must mimic the brain-centric human model. For medical specialists, there are tantalizing hints of ways to awaken cells' innate powers of healing and regeneration.

And for the philosophically minded, basal cognition casts the world in a sparkling new light. Maybe thinking builds from a simple start. Maybe it is happening all around us, every day, in forms we haven't recognized because we didn't know what to look for. Maybe minds are everywhere.

Although it now seems like a Dark Ages idea, only a few decades ago many scientists believed that nonhuman animals couldn't experience pain or other emotions. Real thought? Out of the question. The mind was the purview of humans. “It was the last beachhead,” says Pamela Lyon of the University of Adelaide, a scholar of basal cognition, who coined the term for the field in 2018. Lyon sees scientists' insistence that human intelligence is qualitatively different as just another doomed form of exceptionalism. “We've been ripped from every central position we've inhabited,” she points out. Earth is not the center of the universe. People are just another animal species. But real cognition—that was supposed to set us apart.

Now that notion, too, is in retreat as researchers document the rich inner lives of creatures increasingly distant from us. Apes, dogs, dolphins, crows and even insects are proving more savvy than suspected. In his 2022 book The Mind of a Bee , behavioral ecologist Lars Chittka chronicles his decades of work with honeybees, showing that bees can use sign language, recognize individual human faces, and remember and convey the locations of far-flung flowers . They have good moods and bad, and they can be traumatized by near-death experiences such as being grabbed by an animatronic spider hidden in a flower. (Who wouldn't be?)

But bees, of course, are animals with actual brains, so a soupçon of smarts doesn't really shake the paradigm. The bigger challenge comes from evidence of surprisingly sophisticated behavior in our brainless relatives. “The neuron is not a miracle cell,” says Stefano Mancuso, a University of Florence botanist who has written several books on plant intelligence. “It's a normal cell that is able to produce an electric signal. In plants almost every cell is able to do that.”

On one plant, the touch-me-not, feathery leaves normally fold and wilt when touched (a defense mechanism against being eaten), but when a team of scientists at the University of Western Australia and the University of Firenze in Italy conditioned the plant by jostling it throughout the day without harming it, it quickly learned to ignore the stimulus. Most remarkably, when the scientists left the plant alone for a month and then retested it, it remembered the experience. Other plants have other abilities. A Venus flytrap can count, snapping shut only if two of the sensory hairs on its trap are tripped in quick succession and pouring digestive juices into the closed trap only if its sensory hairs are tripped three more times.

These responses in plants are mediated by electric signals, just as they are in animals. Wire a flytrap to a touch-me-not, and you can make the entire touch-me-not collapse by touching a sensory hair on the flytrap. And these and other plants can be knocked out by anesthetic gas. Their electric activity flatlines, and they stop responding as if unconscious.

Plants can sense their surroundings surprisingly well. They know whether they are being shaded by part of themselves or by something else. They can detect the sound of running water (and will grow toward it) and of bees' wings (and will produce nectar in preparation). They know when they are being eaten by bugs and will produce nasty defense chemicals in response. They even know when their neighbors are under attack: when scientists played a recording of munching caterpillars to a cress plant, that was enough for the plant to send a surge of mustard oil into its leaves.

Plants' most remarkable behavior tends to get underappreciated because we see it every day: they seem to know exactly what form they have and plan their future growth based on the sights, sounds and smells around them, making complicated decisions about where future resources and dangers might be located in ways that can't be boiled down to simple formulas. As Paco Calvo, director of the Minimal Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Murcia in Spain and author of Planta Sapiens , puts it, “Plants have to plan ahead to achieve goals, and to do so, they need to integrate vast pools of data. They need to engage with their surroundings adaptively and proactively, and they need to think about the future. They just couldn't afford to do otherwise.”

None of this implies that plants are geniuses, but within their limited tool set, they show a solid ability to perceive their world and use that information to get what they need—key components of intelligence. But again, plants are a relatively easy case—no brains but lots of complexity and trillions of cells to play with. That's not the situation for single-celled organisms, which have traditionally been relegated to the “mindless” category by virtually everyone. If amoebas can think, then humans need to rethink all kinds of assumptions.

Yet the evidence for cogitating pond scum grows daily. Consider the slime mold, a cellular puddle that looks a bit like melted Velveeta and oozes through the world's forests digesting dead plant matter. Although it can be the size of a throw rug, a slime mold is one single cell with many nuclei. It has no nervous system, yet it is an excellent problem solver. When researchers from Japan and Hungary placed a slime mold at one end of a maze and a pile of oat flakes at the other, the slime mold did what slime molds do, exploring every possible option for tasty resources. But once it found the oat flakes, it retreated from all the dead ends and concentrated its body in the path that led to the oats, choosing the shortest route through the maze (of four possible solutions) every time. Inspired by that experiment, the same researchers then piled oat flakes around a slime mold in positions and quantities meant to represent the population structure of Tokyo, and the slime mold contorted itself into a very passable map of the Tokyo subway system.

Credit: Brown Bird Design; Source: “A Scalable Pipeline for Designing Reconfigurable Organisms,” by Sam Kriegman et al., in PNAS , Vol. 117; January 2020 ( reference )

Such problem-solving could be dismissed as simple algorithms, but other experiments make it clear that slime molds can learn. When Audrey Dussutour of France's National Center for Scientific Research placed dishes of oatmeal on the far end of a bridge lined with caffeine (which slime molds find disgusting), slime molds were stymied for days, searching for a way across the bridge like an arachnophobe trying to scooch past a tarantula. Eventually they got so hungry that they went for it, crossing over the caffeine and feasting on the delicious oatmeal, and soon they lost all aversion to the formerly distasteful stuff. They had overcome their inhibitions and learned from the experience, and they retained the memory even after being put into a state of suspended animation for a year.

Which brings us back to the decapitated planaria. How can something without a brain remember anything? Where is the memory stored? Where is its mind?

T he orthodox view of memory is that it is stored as a stable network of synaptic connections among neurons in a brain. “That view is clearly cracking,” Levin says. Some of the demolition work has come from the lab of neuroscientist David Glanzman of the University of California, Los Angeles. Glanzman was able to transfer a memory of an electric shock from one sea slug to another by extracting RNA from the brains of shocked slugs and injecting it into the brains of new slugs. The recipients then “remembered” to recoil from the touch that preceded the shock. If RNA can be a medium of memory storage, any cell might have the ability, not just neurons.

Indeed, there's no shortage of possible mechanisms by which collections of cells might be able to incorporate experience. All cells have lots of adjustable pieces in their cytoskeletons and gene regulatory networks that can be set in different conformations and can inform behavior later on. In the case of the decapitated planaria, scientists still don't know for sure, but perhaps the remaining bodies were storing information in their cellular interiors that could be communicated to the rest of the body as it was rebuilt. Perhaps their nerves' basic response to rough floors had already been altered.

Levin, though, thinks something even more intriguing is going on: perhaps the impression was stored not just within the cells but in their states of interaction through bioelectricity, the subtle current that courses through all living things. Levin has spent much of his career studying how cell collectives communicate to solve sophisticated challenges during morphogenesis, or body building. How do they work together to make limbs and organs in exactly the right places? Part of that answer seems to lie in bioelectricity.

The fact that bodies have electricity flickering through them has been known for centuries, but until quite recently most biologists thought it was mostly used to deliver signals. Shoot some current through a frog's nervous system, and the frog's leg kicks. Neurons used bioelectricity to transmit information, but most scientists believed that was a specialty of brains, not bodies.

Since the 1930s, however, a small number of researchers have observed that other types of cells seem to be using bioelectricity to store and share information. Levin immersed himself in this unconventional body of work and made the next cognitive leap, drawing on his background in computer science. He'd supported himself during school by writing code, and he knew that computers used electricity to toggle their transistors between 0 and 1 and that all computer programs were built up from that binary foundation. So as an undergraduate, when he learned that all cells in the body have channels in their membranes that act like voltage gates, allowing different levels of current to pass through them, he immediately saw that such gates could function like transistors and that cells could use this electricity-driven information processing to coordinate their activities.

To find out whether voltage changes really altered the ways that cells passed information to one another, Levin turned to his planaria farm. In the 2000s he designed a way to measure the voltage at any point on a planarian and found different voltages on the head and tail ends. When he used drugs to change the voltage of the tail to that normally found in the head, the worm was unfazed. But then he cut the planarian in two, and the head end regrew a second head instead of a tail. Remarkably, when Levin cut the new worm in half, both heads grew new heads. Although the worms were genetically identical to normal planaria, the one-time change in voltage resulted in a permanent two-headed state.

For more confirmation that bioelectricity could control body shape and growth, Levin turned to African clawed frogs, common lab animals that quickly metamorphose from egg to tadpole to adult. He found that he could trigger the creation of a working eye anywhere on a tadpole by inducing a particular voltage in that spot. By simply applying the right bioelectric signature to a wound for 24 hours, he could induce regeneration of a functional leg. The cells took it from there.

“It's a subroutine call,” Levin says. In computer programming, a subroutine call is a piece of code—a kind of shorthand—that tells a machine to initiate a whole suite of lower-level mechanical actions. The beauty of this higher level of programming is that it allows us to control billions of circuits without having to open up the machine and mechanically alter each one by hand. And that was the case with building tadpole eyes. No one had to micromanage the construction of lenses, retinas, and all the other parts of an eye. It could all be controlled at the level of bioelectricity. “It's literally the cognitive glue,” Levin says. “It's what allows groups of cells to work together.”

Levin believes this discovery could have profound implications not only for our understanding of the evolution of cognition but also for human medicine. Learning to “speak cell”—to coordinate cells' behavior through bioelectricity—might help us treat cancer, a disease that occurs when part of the body stops cooperating with the rest of the body. Normal cells are programmed to function as part of the collective, sticking to the tasks assigned—liver cell, skin cell, and so on. But cancer cells stop doing their job and begin treating the surrounding body like an unfamiliar environment, striking out on their own to seek nourishment, replicate and defend themselves from attack. In other words, they act like independent organisms.

Why do they lose their group identity? In part, Levin says, because the mechanisms that maintain the cellular mind meld can fail. “Stress, chemicals, genetic mutations can all cause a breakdown of this communication,” he says. His team has been able to induce tumors in frogs just by forcing a “bad” bioelectric pattern onto healthy tissue. It's as if the cancer cells stop receiving their orders and go rogue.

Even more tantalizingly, Levin has dissipated tumors by reintroducing the proper bioelectric pattern—in effect reestablishing communication between the breakaway cancer and the body, as if he's bringing a sleeper cell back into the fold. At some point in the future, he speculates, bioelectric therapy might be applied to human cancers, stopping tumors from growing. It also could play a role in regenerating failing organs—kidneys, say, or hearts—if scientists can crack the bioelectric code that tells cells to start growing in the right patterns. With tadpoles, in fact, Levin showed that animals suffering from massive brain damage at birth were able to build normal brains after the right shot of bioelectricity.

L evin's research has always had tangible applications, such as cancer therapy, limb regeneration and wound healing. But over the past few years he's allowed a philosophical current to enter his papers and talks. “It's been sort of a slow rollout,” he confesses. “I've had these ideas for decades, but it wasn't the right time to talk about it.”

That began to change with a celebrated 2019 paper entitled “The Computational Boundary of a Self,” in which he harnessed the results of his experiments to argue that we are all collective intelligences built out of smaller, highly competent problem-solving agents . As Vermont's Bongard told the New York Times , “What we are is intelligent machines made of intelligent machines made of intelligent machines all the way down.”

For Levin, that realization came in part from watching the bodies of his clawed frogs as they developed. In frogs' transformation from tadpole to adult, their faces undergo massive remodeling. The head changes shape, and the eyes, mouth and nostrils all migrate to new positions. The common assumption has been that these rearrangements are hardwired and follow simple mechanical algorithms carried out by genes, but Levin suspected it wasn't so preordained. So he electrically scrambled the normal development of frog embryos to create tadpoles with eyes, nostrils and mouths in all the wrong places. Levin dubbed them “Picasso tadpoles,” and they truly looked the part.

If the remodeling were preprogrammed, the final frog face should have been as messed up as the tadpole. Nothing in the frog's evolutionary past gave it genes for dealing with such a novel situation. But Levin watched in amazement as the eyes and mouths found their way to the right arrangement while the tadpoles morphed into frogs. The cells had an abstract goal and worked together to achieve it. “This is intelligence in action,” Levin wrote, “the ability to reach a particular goal or solve a problem by undertaking new steps in the face of changing circumstances.” Fused into a hive mind through bioelectricity, the cells achieved feats of bioengineering well beyond those of our best gene jockeys.

Some of the most intense interest in Levin's work has come from the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics, which see in basal cognition a way to address some core weaknesses. For all their remarkable prowess in manipulating language or playing games with well-defined rules, AIs still struggle immensely to understand the physical world. They can churn out sonnets in the style of Shakespeare, but ask them how to walk or to predict how a ball will roll down a hill, and they are clueless.

According to Bongard, that's because these AIs are, in a sense, too heady. “If you play with these AIs, you can start to see where the cracks are. And they tend to be around things like common sense and cause and effect, which points toward why you need a body. If you have a body, you can learn about cause and effect because you can cause effects . But these AI systems can't learn about the world by poking at it.”

Bongard is at the vanguard of the “embodied cognition” movement, which seeks to design robots that learn about the world by monitoring the way their form interacts with it. For an example of embodied cognition in action, he says, look no further than his one-and-a-half-year-old child, “who is probably destroying the kitchen right now. That's what toddlers do. They poke the world, literally and metaphorically, and then watch how the world pushes back. It's relentless.”

Bongard's lab uses AI programs to design robots out of flexible, LEGO-like cubes that he calls “ Minecraft for robotics.” The cubes act like blocky muscle, allowing the robots to move their bodies like caterpillars. The AI-designed robots learn by trial and error, adding and subtracting cubes and “evolving” into more mobile forms as the worst designs get eliminated.

Plants use bioelectricity to communicate and take action. If you brush a sensory hair on a Venus flytrap ( right ), and the flytrap is wired to a touch-me-not plant ( left ), leaves on the touch-me-not will fold and wilt. Credit: Natalya Balnova

In 2020 Bongard's AI discovered how to make robots walk. That accomplishment inspired Levin's lab to use microsurgery to remove live skin stem cells from an African clawed frog and nudge them together in water. The cells fused into a lump the size of a sesame seed and acted as a unit. Skin cells have cilia, tiny hairs that typically hold a layer of protective mucus on the surface of an adult frog, but these creations used their cilia like oars, rowing through their new world. They navigated mazes and even closed up wounds when injured. Freed from their confined existence in a biological cubicle, they became something new and made the best of their situation. They definitely weren't frogs, despite sharing the identical genome. But because the cells originally came from frogs of the genus Xenopus , Levin and Bongard nicknamed the things “xenobots.” In 2023 they showed similar feats could be achieved by pieces of another species: human lung cells. Clumps of the human cells self-assembled and moved around in specific ways. The Tufts team named them “anthrobots.”

To Levin, the xenobots and anthrobots are another sign that we need to rethink the way cognition plays out in the actual world. “Typically when you ask about a given living thing, you ask, ‘Why does it have the shape it has? Why does it have the behaviors it has?' And the standard answer is evolution, of course. For eons it was selected for. Well, guess what? There have never been any xenobots. There's never been any pressure to be a good xenobot. So why do these things do what they do within 24 hours of finding themselves in the world? I think it's because evolution does not produce specific solutions to specific problems. It produces problem-solving machines.”

Xenobots and anthrobots are, of course, quite limited in their capabilities, but perhaps they provide a window into how intelligence might naturally scale up when individual units with certain goals and needs come together to collaborate. Levin sees this innate tendency toward innovation as one of the driving forces of evolution, pushing the world toward a state of, as Charles Darwin might have put it, endless forms most beautiful. “We don't really have a good vocabulary for it yet,” he says, “but I honestly believe that the future of all this is going to look more like psychiatry talk than chemistry talk. We're going to end up having a calculus of pressures and memories and attractions.”

Levin hopes this vision will help us overcome our struggle to acknowledge minds that come in packages bearing little resemblance to our own, whether they are made of slime or silicon. For Adelaide's Lyon, recognizing that kinship is the real promise of basal cognition. “We think we are the crown of creation,” she says. “But if we start realizing that we have a whole lot more in common with the blades of grass and the bacteria in our stomachs—that we are related at a really, really deep level—it changes the entire paradigm of what it is to be a human being on this planet.”

Indeed, the very act of living is by default a cognitive state, Lyon says. Every cell needs to be constantly evaluating its surroundings, making decisions about what to let in and what to keep out and planning its next steps. Cognition didn't arrive later in evolution. It's what made life possible.

“Everything you see that's alive is doing this amazing thing,” Lyon points out. “If an airplane could do that, it would be bringing in its fuel and raw materials from the outside world while manufacturing not just its components but also the machines it needs to make those components and doing repairs, all while it's flying! What we do is nothing short of a miracle.”

Rowan Jacobsen is a journalist and author of several books, including Truffle Hound (Bloomsbury, 2021). He wrote about cracking the code that makes artificial proteins in Scientific American 's July 2021 issue. Follow Jacobsen on X (formerly Twitter) @rowanjacobsen