ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role of emotions in principals' decision-making when confronted with problems of practice. It explains how the Objective Knowledge Growth Framework, based on Popper's critical rationalism, can assist principals in overcoming some of the confirmation bias stemming from their emotional decision-making processes. First, the chapter discusses the Simon's rational decision-making and emotional decision-making models. Next, an argument is made for organizations and institutions, including schools, to acknowledge that emotion and cognition interact with one another and that rational decision-making model, based solely on cognition, are not defensible, as evidenced by Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis (SMH). Herbert A. Simon, in 1960, was the first to introduce the now widely accepted conceptualization of the rational decision-making process, the aim of which was to provide a comprehensive and structured approach to decision-making. A key influence of the OKGF is Karl Popper's twin concepts of critical rationalism and the growth of objective knowledge.
