Bonjour!
What are you doing right now ?
Sitting on your couch scrolling through Instagram?
Eating some Ice cream? Reading a book?
Or Maybe studying for that End of Module exam?
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Don't worry, I am not here to judge. I just want to know.
Have you ever wondered how you ended up there?
Hello Everyone!
A lot of people don’t really know how they end up in the positions that they are in. What a lot of people tend to forget is that where we are in our life is usually a combination of our circumstances,luck, and the decisions that’s we make.While we can’t control circumstances and how lucky we are,we do have some control over the decision making process.It can be hard to believe that decisions regarding mundane tasks in our lives can play such a big role in how our lives play out.For example,your decision to get up early in the morning can impact your day positively by allowing you to get more done during the day but can result in a pretty bad day if you wake up early after a night of little to no sleep.The very minute decision to wake up early, combined with your circumstances can severely impact how good or bad your day goes.
With that in mind,we shouldn’t take the decision making process lightly. We should aim to understand the psychology of making decisions and how to make better ones.Lucky for you dear reader,that’s what this article is addressing today.
Decisions?
The types of decisions that we encounter can be categorised in many different ways. In the context of an individual person, decisions can be divided into programmed decisions and non-programmed decisions.
Programmed decisions are typically straightforward decisions that usually have an automated response due to need to make said decision occurs frequently. These decisions are usually limited to mundane tasks that require little brainpower in order to make the decision. The automated response that is used to make this decision is called a decision rule. For example, you may be feeling thirsty on a hot afternoon and your automatic response or decision rule is more than likely to drink a glass of water. This decision does not require much thought and is a habitual decision.
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Non-programmed decision making however is just as its name suggests. It is a decision that is made without an automatic response. This type of decision typically requires the collection of a lot of data, brainstorming and the careful weighing of options and alternatives. An example of a non-programmed decision would be deciding which medical school that you would want to attend in order to pursue your studies. You probably gathered lots of relevant information about the schools that you were interested in such as where the campuses were located, activities on campus, and whether the teaching style was suited to your learning style. You then probably evaluated what was important to you in a medical school and weighed each medical school against one another to see which better met your needs.
Types of decision
The second one is called is called the bounded rationality model. It’s called bounded rationality due to the fact it takes into consideration the bounds or limitations of our decision making. This is based on people limiting their options without actually exploring them. This leads to satisfice which is accepting the first option that meets your minimum criteria. It is fairly similar to rational decision making but instead of making the best choice they tend to make the choice that meets their minimum criteria. For example, you may be hungry and instead of making sure you go through all of your cupboards for food, you only open up your fridge and grab what’s available. You probably aren’t making the effort to go through all of the food in your house and are therefore unaware of your options which results in subpar decision making.
The third model is the intuitive decision making model. It typically refers to arriving to decisions without conscious reasoning. The keyword here is “Conscious”. These are decisions that are often made in high pressure situations such as projects or emergencies with time constraints ,high stakes outcomes and that have a lot of uncertainty. These circumstances does not allow the usage of the rational decision making model, however it does not mean that the decision making is unsystematic. This decision making is different from the first 2 in that only one option is considered at a time. Experts make decisions by recognising patterns and running a course of action based on knowledge, experience and training mentally. While doing this, they can gauge how well the solution will work and rework it before execution. If it cannot be done, it is discarded and something else is considered. Amateurs are not a good fit for this decision making because it requires experience and knowledge both of which they do not have.
The final model is called Creative decision making.
Creativity is important to prevent ensure a steady stream of fresh ideas is present and can be tested to see if they work. It is important for innovation. Like all the other models, the problem must first be identified .The second step is immersion where by a problem is pondered on and information on it is gathered. The problem is then set aside and not thought about for a while, letting the subconscious work of the problem. This is known as incubation. The illumination step is when the solution becomes known to the person and finally verification of the solution and its application happen in order to make and complete the decision. Originality, Fluency (number of ideas generated) and Flexibilty (the distinct differences in the ideas) are used to evaluate creativity levels in decision making.
There are a few types of decision making models that we can use when it comes to making decisions.
The first one is called the rational decision making model. This model is essentially series of steps that allow a systematic approach in order to get the best outcome. Allow me to use a scenario to explain this model to you. You are a first year medical student looking to buy a tablet to digitize your study materials. The first step is to identify your problem, in this case that is that you need a tablet for your studies. The second step is to establish your decision criteria, this could be deciding on factors such as the size of the tablet and the quality of its display. The third step would be to weigh your decision criteria, the quality of the display of the tablet may not be as important as the size of the tablet as you may choose to use it for writing. If both of the criteria are equally important to you, then the criteria need not be weighed. The fourth step is to generate alternatives. this could be looking for tablets from other brands. The fifth step is to evaluate the alternatives using information about them. The sixth and seventh step are to choose the best alternative based on your criteria and implement the decision. Finally you should evaluate your decision based on its outcome, this could be whether you enjoy using your tablet to study or not. It is a model that is very beneficial due to its systematic nature but has its flaws when you realize that it assumes that everyone knows all of their available options or alternatives. On the flip side , many options or alternatives can result in analysis paralysis, where more time is spent on information gathering than decision making.
“Make decisions from a place of clarity."
This is especially important for people who are prone to anxiety. Make sure that you are not in distress when making the decision. Meditation and relaxation are good ways to gain clarity.
In a nutshell,there is a lot that goes into making a decision.Our futures our dictated by decisions that we make now and our present is a result of decisions that we made in our past.While that may seem scary,its a step forward that can often bring us closer to our dreams and goals .Even if the decision results in an unwanted outcome,there is always a lesson that we can learn that brings us one step closer to becoming the people that world needs us to become. So go out there, make decisions(rationally,bounded by rationality,intuitively or creatively!) you really wont regret it!