What Makes a Decision

A detailed Summary of What Makes a Decision

Decision making is a part of almost everybody's everyday life. No matter how small or mundane the decision to be made, there is an underlying cognitive process and many influences that affect both how the decision is made, and what the decision is. It is these influences that affect how the decision is made in which this paper is interested; specifically, what influences the decision making process. There are several options to explore, including a person's rationality, the influence of long term memory, and a person's emotions.

In their chapter entitled "Decision Making," Shafir and Tversky (1995) define two approaches to decision making: the normative and the descriptive approaches. The normative approach is defined as the ideal, assuming "a rational decision maker, who has well defined preferences that do not depend on a particular description of the options or on the specific methods for eliciting preference." (Shafir & Tversky, 1995) In short, this is the ideal decision maker who makes decisions based completely on logic and whose decision is not changed based on the way the choices are presented. The second approach, the descriptive approach, is based on how people actually make decisions. This article discusses several ra

Shafir and Tversky (1995) name two basic factors in evaluating the potential gain versus loss of a situation. The first, risk aversion, is "the preference for a sure outcome over a risky prospect that has higher or equal expected value," as losses generally emerge larger than gains. Risk seeking is just the opposite; opting for the risky prospect, or gamble. (Shafir & Tversky, 1995) These factors are the main components of the "Prospect Theory," which states that people look at outcomes in terms of gains and losses, not in terms of total wealth. This mental calculation of the potential for gain or loss heavily influences people's decisions, especially where something is at risk of being lost.

The final article explores the impact of emotion on people's decision making process. Stephen Pinker's 1997 article entitled "Hotheads" investigates the universality of emotions and how emotions impact our lives. Emotions, in fact, seem to affect nearly everything we do. This includes decision making; it appears that emotional impulses can greatly affect how we make decisions and what decisions we make on a daily basis. Pinker (1997) evaluates emotions across cultures, and even species, and concludes that emotions are basically universal; every culture expresses or understands the emotions of others. He then goes on to look at several different emotions, including fear, disgust, happiness, and altruism, and determine

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Approximate Word count = 955
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English