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  • Writer's pictureAndreea Columban

The complexity of decision-making



Decision making is a very important aspect of our lives, it influences our personal and professional life in a huge way.  Each one of us makes decisions that concern our daily activities, career, relationships with those around us. The complexity of it includes cognitive and psychological factors.


Making a decision can be a problem for emotionally unstable people, because they are more anxious and have reduced self-control and a weak Ego. At the same time, making a decision can be difficult for those who approach negative thinking. Negative thinking can inhibit us in all our daily activities. Therefore, we will engage passively, defensively in solving problems, we will underestimate our own possibilities, we will have unfavorable perceptions of our own person, and finally, our actual performance will also deteriorate.


Emotions play a crucial role in decision making. Fear, joy, or anxiety can affect how we weigh risks and benefits. Emotional intelligence has a much more important role in our lives than we might have thought. This concept falls under four broad categories: self-awareness, social awareness, personal management, and social skills. Understanding your own emotions and how they influence your decision-making process can lead to more balanced and well-informed choices.


One of the most important part of making a decision are cognitive functions like evolution and reasoning. Cognitive fluency is the tendency to prefer things that are familiar and easy to understand. There are factors that can influence choosing the best path like perceptions, memory and information. If you understand these factors you can evaluate your decisions and chose the right one. 


The term social influence refers to the ways in which people are affected by the real or imagined pressure that others exert on them.People can be influenced by the group they belong to and convinced to make decisions and act against their own values. Social conformity refers to the action by which a person changes his behavior to match the reactions of others. These phenomena are often used in manipulations.


Despite the fact that most people are within normal parameters regarding the appreciation of the consequences of their actions, they can act discordantly because of the influence of a group. In this way, it is possible to explain a series of violent, illegal actions in which young people participate, while they are in a group.The question can be asked if these people are fully responsible for their actions while they are in that group. The question also arises whether young people are more vulnerable to this phenomenon than more mature people.


In conclusion, decision making is a combination between emotions, cognitive functions and social influences. By understanding this process, we have the opportunity to improve our decision-making skills and navigate more consciously the complex world of our choices.



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