Tentative Decisions - Decide, Decide, Make up Your Mind

The Psy­chol­o­gy of Deci­sion-Mak­ing

Thomas woke up to the shrill sound of his alarm. Five more min­utes or start the day? He rolled to the left, rolled to the right and chose to let the clock win. When he final­ly got up, he hes­i­tat­ed in front of the kitchen counter. Cof­fee sound­ed com­fort­ing, but tea seemed lighter. Cof­fee, he thought. Def­i­nite­ly cof­fee. The clos­et was no bet­ter. Shirt or sweater? Was it chilly out­side? He checked his phone, then picked the sweater. On his com­mute, a green light turned orange — risk it or stop? He stopped and watched the lights, turned his head and glanced at his phone, unsure if he should check his mes­sages. He stuffed it into his pock­et instead. At work, emails stared back at him. Which one should he tack­le first? His boss want­ed ideas for the new project. Should he play it safe or pitch his bold­er plan? After a long pause, he ner­vous­ly went with a mix­ture of both.  At lunch, things felt odd­ly tricky. Sal­ad seemed health­i­er, but the fries called to him. Lat­er, at the gro­cery store, he stared at shelves. Apples or bananas? Frozen piz­za or fresh ingre­di­ents? At home, unwind­ing on the couch, he clicked through var­i­ous pro­grams not sure what to watch when stop­ping on a doc­u­men­tary: “Humans make over 35,000 deci­sions dai­ly…”. Thomas chuck­led. “That’s ridicu­lous. Who has time to think that much?”, and with a short hes­i­ta­tion he turned off the TV. “Should I go to bed or read?”, Thomas sighed and decid­ed to go to bed.

From the moment we wake until we drift off to sleep, our lives are shaped by choic­es — some triv­ial, like what to wear, and oth­ers life-alter­ing, like choos­ing a career or end­ing a rela­tion­ship. But whether the deci­sion is small or sig­nif­i­cant, how often do we tru­ly under­stand the process behind it? What fac­tors influ­ence our choic­es? Why do some deci­sions feel effort­less, while oth­ers leave us stuck or sec­ond-guess­ing?

What is deci­sion-mak­ing?

At its core, deci­sion-mak­ing is the cog­ni­tive and behav­ioral process of iden­ti­fy­ing a prob­lem or goal, eval­u­at­ing alter­na­tives, and choos­ing a course of action. It seems straight­for­ward: Find the best option, act, and achieve the desired out­come. Yet, real­i­ty rarely feels this sim­ple. Why do we some­times regret our choic­es or feel like they weren’t entire­ly our own? Why do we some­times strug­gle to decide at all? The answer lies in the com­plex­i­ty of the deci­sion-mak­ing process. Often, deci­sions are influ­enced by a lack of resources: not hav­ing enough time, per­ceiv­ing incom­plete infor­ma­tion or con­straints of cog­ni­tive capac­i­ty. While some choic­es fol­low log­i­cal rea­son­ing, many rely on emo­tion­al respons­es, men­tal short­cuts, or are influ­enced per­son­al­i­ty traits and our mind­set. These less con­scious mech­a­nisms help us cope with the over­whelm­ing num­ber of dai­ly deci­sions but can also lead to mis­takes or dis­sat­is­fac­tion, espe­cial­ly when fac­ing high­ly rel­e­vant choic­es.

But some ques­tions remain: What role do emo­tions play in our deci­sions? How does our per­son­al­i­ty influ­ence choic­es? Why is our mind­set impor­tant when decid­ing? And when log­ic fails, what dri­ves us to choose any­way. To bet­ter under­stand this fas­ci­nat­ing process, we explore key the­o­ries of deci­sion-mak­ing. In the upcom­ing arti­cles, we will delve into the fas­ci­nat­ing con­cept of the Dual-Process the­o­ry [3]. We will explore Anto­nio Damá­sio’s The­o­ry of Somat­ic Mark­ers and learn how emo­tions and phys­i­o­log­i­cal reac­tions shape our deci­sions [1]. We will also uncov­er the impact of our mind­set on the choic­es we make.

Read the series about deci­sion-mak­ing

You will not only gain a sol­id knowl­edge of these psy­cho­log­i­cal con­cepts and the­o­ries which help you to under­stand the process behind deci­sion-mak­ing. You will also receive prac­ti­cal tools for improv­ing your own deci­sion-mak­ing skills in your job but also in your dai­ly life. Whether you’re fac­ing a tough deci­sion or sim­ply look­ing to nav­i­gate life’s cross­roads with greater clar­i­ty and con­fi­dence, you’ll dis­cov­er action­able strate­gies and avoid com­mon pit­falls and ten­ta­tive deci­sions [2]. You will thrive in high-stakes sit­u­a­tions.

Ref­er­ences

[1] Dama­sio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ Error: Emo­tion, Rea­son, and the Human Brain. New York: Avon Books.

[2] Talk­ing Heads. (1975). Ten­ta­tive Deci­sions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUmrCqXKlEg

[3] Tver­sky, A., & Kah­ne­man, D. (1974). Judg­ment under Uncer­tain­ty: Heuris­tics and Bias­es. Sci­ence (New York, N.Y.), 185(4157), 1124–1131. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124