So
as some people may, or may not, know we had to compose a post with
the help of a little research. Knowing that such a post was to be due
on the ensuing monday I sat down on a fairly gloomy Sunday afternoon
and began to browse around for a suitable source of information.
After what seemed to be an eternity of searching I came across an
article that really caught my eye. Titled “Decision Making:
Factors that Influence Decision Making, Heuristics Used, and Decision
Outcomes”, the article came from the StudentPulse database. The
article, through a miracle of God, also fit the prescribed
requirements that had been previously set by Admiral Gee.
Well
now that the stars had aligned and allowed the article be informative
and also up to par on the requirements I finally began the process of
making the relation between the article and my topic of choice. The
article brought up the concept of what factors dictated the outcome
of a decision. The factors that the article really stressed upon
were “past experiences, a variety of cognitive biases, an
escalation of commitment and sunk outcomes, individual differences,
including age and socioeconomic status, and a belief in personal
relevance.” Now before reading this article I had thought of how
individual differences and biases would affect the decisions that
people made but not so much about the issues of past experiences or
commitment.
Now
some of you may be thinking, “Well John Carey, you idiot, of course
past experiences are influential!” Until this point I believe that
I had not thought about past experiences because I saw them as more
of a subliminal, instinctual action. If someone were to have a
negative outcome to a decision they would relate the action with a
bad experience, so if encountered again the action would
instinctually be shot down and pushed away. The same scenario can be
reversed to represent positively influential situations. While these
are true the article pushed a point of view that I had never even
began to consider, “that future decisions based on past experiences
are not necessarily the best decisions.” This concept really set
me back a few steps, this notion blew my mind.. And as I do with
everything I immediately made an analogy with fishing. If you go
fishing and don't catch anything it can be a very negative experience
because fishing is a long, patient activity. But if you let this
negative experience influence your future decision to never go
fishing again you would never know what it would be like to have a
positive fishing experience. Actually catching a fish. If something
was bad in the past it does not mean that the same thing will be bad
in the future.
The
other portion of the decision making I was oblivious to was
commitment. After reading what the article had to say it was as
clear as day why commitment had a large impact on decisions. It
related commitment more to the level of risk involved in the
decisions being made. If someone has more “time, money, and effort”
invested in a project or action they feel more inclined to take
riskier decisions. This is especially true if they have made the big
investments and the project takes a turn for the worst. Then people
are much more likely to take risks in order to try and return to
equal on the project.
The
article really opened my eyes. It brought forth lots of concepts that
I had never thought of affecting decisions. Now I will be much more
conscious of these factors and decision will become lots more thought
involving. How is all of this going to affect your decisions?...
