P's of decision-making

By watedroplet

                                                         Image credit: Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke on Pixabay

Pondering over the concept of decision-making, I was compelled to think about what really makes us take a decision. Why do we ever choose to decide? When this question was thrown to me by the author Antony Robbins, I was like I never thought about it, it just happens. As I proceeded in my reading the discussion was becoming more interesting and the answer I came up with was really a shock to me.

The author talked about why did Donald Trump do what he did and why Mother Teresa did what she liked? Both of them are making decisions to do things but in different ways. Even though it is about decision-making why are they different in all manners?

Decision-making is a cognitive process, which means, it has something to do with thinking. But, this thinking process is led by our emotions (emotions associated with "pain or/and pleasure"). 

What our decisions are emotionally guided?

Yes, we decide because we want to escape the feeling of pain(fear, failure, etc.) or pleasure (

Author Antony has explained this concept in simple language for everyone to understand. I was looking for proof that these findings are true and I found out in "Decisions and Desire."

In this article, the author Morse took this economic experiment to explain this connection:

"This experiment involves two players. One player(say A) has $10 to split with the second player(say B). Now, player A can offer B any amount between $0 and $10, and she gets to keep the leftover change, provided that you accept the offer. B is free to reject any offer, but if she does, neither A nor B gets anything. On interviewing the participants about why they turned down the deal, they replied that they were ticked off at the stingy partner(because with this move she will also lose her share). 

So, in this experiment, we see that the deal of lowball was painful for us(we felt cheated, dumped, ill-teated, disrespected, lowered standard etc.) This was uncomfortable for me so I was seeking ways to reduce this I decided to put down the deal not because of the immense pain but with the pleasure that ok if I rejected this deal I would get nothing( even though it is a small amount) she will lose the most because her share is more. So, I am finding pleasure in her loss more than the pain of lowball. My decision is guided by the emotions that I am feeling. 
    This is true for every situation in our lives. Think of any of the bad betrayals that have happened to you. Why the person chooses to betray is some game between their pleasure and pain experiences. We all are puppets of the Pleasure and Pain experiences we had in our past that guide our decisions in the present. 

    Hence, by paying close attention to our pattern of the emotions that guide us in our decisions we can cautiously observe our decision-making process and work on them and make improvements and help ourselves to make good decisions. In the next post, I will be talking about the phenomenon of this pain and pleasure experience in our decision-making behaviour. How we can understand this and tap our energies towards guiding ourselves to make good decisions. 


This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon 2024


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