Flexibility in decision making

One of the most fascinating aspects of human decision behavior is the flexibility with which individuals respond to a wide variety of task conditions. Preference judgments, assessments of uncertainty, and choices among alternative courses of action all can be affected by minor changes in the task environment. To illustrate, imagine that you are a senior member of the faculty of a psychology department at a private university. One of your responsibilities is to help in the hiring of new faculty. One day, the chairperson of your department drops the files of two job applicants on your desk. She would like to know which one of the two job applicants you would prefer to invite in for a job interview. The files contain information on each applicant's educational background, prior publication record, current research and teaching interests, and evaluations of prior teaching performance, among other information. How would you go about processing the information about the two applicants in order to make a choice? How would you solve the choice problem if one applicant seemed to offer more potential as a teacher whereas the other applicant offered more potential as a researcher and colleague?