MAKING DECISIONS - How influenced are we? 💬🧠
In cafés, there’s a wide range of coffees to choose from, from skinny latte to trople caramel frapuccino. ☕️
How do you decide which coffee to have? Do you analyse or even know how much caffeine you’d like or need? Do you know or care how many calories are in the drink? Most people think the best option is the most expensive and if they can afford it, will choose it. There have been a number of studies where price tags have been switched and people’s choices switch to the most expensive as a result. 💸 This would suggest that decision-making is not all rational.
Have you ever considered whether your decisions are influenced by the power of suggestion? If you were handed a warm drink on a cold winter’s day, would you have a better opinion about that person?🤷🏽♀️
Our decisions are influenced in many different ways. We all know that the answers to questions in surveys depend largely on the wording of the question. A posetively worded question will probably elicit a positive response. ✅
The human brain plays tricks on us too. In many cases, when we ask for advice, we don’t really consider all of it, we just hear the parts that confirm what we wanted to hear. 🧠
Our decision-making may also depend on our personality. An optimistic person may overestimate the positive outcomed of making decidion whereas a pessimistic person may decide against doing something for fest of a negative result.
Even when we believe we are making a rational decision based on previous experience, this may not be the case. If you went on holiday to a particular resort last year and had a great time, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you will have a great time this year. It could have been influenced by the weather, the people and your emotional status. 💬
It’s said that, the correct way for making decisions is thinking about the pros and cons of each option. To my mind, at least we always do what we thought we were going to do since the first moment. I appreciate and consider advices from friends and family, but I always decide with my heart.
It’s your life, who’s gonna decide about it: you or them? 😜