let’s talk about it with…
Gabriella Pravettoni
Learning to decide Optimizing decision processes to encourage individual and organizational change interview by Lilia Biscaglia
phy, with modules in Psychology, Economy, Philosophy, Sociology and Medicine: a range of disciplines studying the relationship between mind-brain and the mechanisms underlying the decision processes. This Course, started in 2008 with about 120 enrolments, has almost doubled the number of its students this year. Let’s talk about it with Gabriella Pravettoni, Professor in Cognitive Science and President of this Degree Course. Which Faculty do the students attending the Cognitive Science and Decision Processes Course come from? Most students come from the Faculties of Economy and Philosophy, but we also have many students from Medicine and Surgery. Actually, the Course offers two specialized curricula, the first focused on decision making in a socio-economic context, the second on decision making in a medical context. The latter includes many students with a Bachelor’s Degree in Medicine or otherwise specialized in the medical field. What do you teach your students? We offer a Degree Course in Cognitive Science and Decision Processes. Our project is to propose an interdisciplinary study of the mind, especially focused on decision making. While other Degree Courses in Cognitive Science are characterized by an information, technological or philosophical approach, we are more focused on the decision process. Therefore every single module is designed to investigate thoroughly this specific kind of cognitive process. For example, in the field of research applied to decision making, we have modules in Neuroeconomics and Neuromarketing, and we analyze the decisional processes in the context of Medical Science. We investigate Conflict Resolution in different contexts and our students learn to encourage decisional processes within their working groups.
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ow do we decide? This question deals with the cognitive processes involved in everyday life. However, the mechanisms underlying decision making can affect the fortunes of wider organizations and play a key role in consumers, savers, doctors and managers’ choices. Becoming an expert in decision making is the aim of the almost 240 students registered in the Interfaculty Second level Degree Course (Master’s Degree) in Cognitive Science and Decision Processes of the University of Milan. This Course offers a multidisciplinary, advanced approach to the study of mind and decision. That is why the two year’s Course is structured as a comprehensive training project including disciplines as varied as Political Science, Medicine and Surgery, Literature and Philoso-
Why should students choose a Second Level (Master’s) Degree instead of a Post-graduation training? Our Degree Course integrates different cultural fields, such as psychology, philosophy and economics, while focusing on the aspects relating to decision making: our students will not be graduated in Psychology or Philosophy, they will be Cognitive Scientists. The Course offers a specialist training program which has no equal, because it is founded upon the firm belief that, in a job context, one of the most in demand characteristics for a Cognitive Scientist is his/her multidisciplinary training. 6