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Are You Scared of Your Next Decision?

Posted on by by Posted in Creative Thinking, Risk and Uncertainty, Stress Management

Scared of Your Next Decision?

Edvard Munch (1893): The Scream. Oil, tempera & pastel on cardboard. [Image rights in the public domain.]

Tonight will be a scary night for the bravest of us, with countless children roaming the streets, high on sugar, threatening to knock on our very doors.

However, even today, our most crippling fears probably come from within. Are you scared of your next decision? Afraid of making the wrong choice? Funnily enough, while dogs and – some say – children can smell our fear; on our own we’re not always very good at recognizing when and why we’re scared.

Here’s how you can recognize whether your decision scares you:

  • You avoid making the decision altogether, for example by procrastinating or by shifting the responsibility to others.
  • You get overly emotional about your decision. Maybe you get angry or burst into tears when others are bringing up uncomfortable truths about your situation? Such emotional outbursts are effective ways of shutting down a conversation, and they can be warning signs that your fears are holding you back from thinking and acting in the best way.
  • You keep investing into previous mistakes. This is also known as “escalating commitment”. When coping with poor outcomes of our previous choices, it is tempting to dig in our heels and devote even more resources to our current path, in the hope of somehow making it work. But sometimes, making the best decision for the future requires that we admit having made a mistake in the past. This is not easy: even admitting mistakes just to ourselves takes a lot of courage, but it can open the door to a new and better direction.

If any of these points ring true, take it as a warning sign that you might need more courage to approach your decision.

How to become a braver decision maker

The simplest way to get more courage is to take responsibility for your decision process, even if the outcomes are not all in your control. Follow a decision process that is in line with your values. Without being able to predict the future, we will never have a guarantee that good decisions will lead to good consequences, but there is plenty of evidence showing that a good decision process is indeed more likely to result in better outcomes. Since you will make many decisions over your lifetime, you can therefore be assured that if you follow a good decision process throughout your life, your decision outcomes will be better overall.

Four steps to tackle your decisions fearlessly:

1) Commit to a value-driven rational decision process. This does not guarantee good outcomes, but it does make them more likely.

2) Ask yourself: Which of my values matter for this decision? In other words, what are my personal criteria as to whether the outcome will be “good” or “bad”?

3) Think: What can I do that best fulfills all those values? (Think beyond your initial ideas. If necessary, use tools/visuals/charts etc to evaluate your options – I’m not getting started on all this here, but you know who to ask if you want to know more about creative thinking and evaluating options.)

4) Act. Knowing that you’ve made the best decision you possibly could have with your current knowledge – a decision that is based on your values, rather than on fear – will empower you to act with confidence.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Selected References:
Anderson, B., Hahn, D., & Teuscher, U. (2013). Heart and Mind: Mastering the Art of Decision Making. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Aschenbrenner, K. M., Jaus, D., & Villani, C. (1980). Hierarchical goal structuring and pupils’ job choices: testing a decision aid in the field. Acta Psychologica, 45, 35–49.
Bruine de Bruin, W., Parker, A. M., & Fischhoff, B. (2007). Individual differences in adult decision-making competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 938–956.
Dean, J. W., & Sharfman, M. P. (1996). Does Decision Process Matter? A Study of Strategic Decision-Making Effectiveness. The Academy of Management Journal, 39(2), 368–396.
Herek, G. M., Janis, I. L., & Huth, P. (1989). Quality of U.S. Decision Making during the Cuban Missile Crisis: Major Errors in Welch’s Reassessment. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 33(3), 446–459.
Keeney, R. L. (1996). Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decision Making. Harvard University Press.

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Decision Styles: Are Some Better Than Others?

Posted on by by Posted in Intuition

I was excited to find a new study about decision styles and how they relate to decision qualities.

We know that people have different ways of approaching decisions – or different decision styles. Several studies have suggested the existence of five distinct styles:

baddecisions

1) Rational
An example item in a questionnaire would be:
“I make decisions in a logical and systematic way.”

2) Intuitive
E.g.,“When I make decisions, I tend to rely on my intuition.”

3) Avoidant
E.g.,“I avoid making important decisions until the pressure is on.”

4) Dependent
E.g.,“I rarely make important decisions without consulting other people.”

5) Spontaneous
E.g.,“I generally make snap decisions.”

One big question is: are some of these styles better than others? Or in other words, can decision styles distinguish between “good” decision makers and “bad” decision makers? It would be interesting to know, for example, if decision makers with a more “rational” style generally make better or worse decisions than people with a more “intuitive” style.

A recent study by Nicole Wood and Scott Highhouse attempted to answer exactly this question. They found some interesting answers indeed:

  • While intuitive decision-makers rated themselves as the best decision makers, their peers did not agree with those high opinions. It was on the contrary the rational decision style that was related to higher quality decisions, when the decisions were judged by others, rather than the decision makers themselves.
  • None of the other decision styles (avoidant, dependent, or spontaneous) explained much difference in decision qualities at all. Only the avoidant style was somewhat related to low self-ratings, but with a small effect size, and none of those decision styles were related to peer ratings in any way.

Additionally, the researchers looked at personality styles, which have been much more extensively studied in the past already, and are at this point better understood than decision styles. They found that conscientiousness, as a personality trait, is also a characteristic of people who are judged as good decision makers by their peers.

To put this most recent study into perspective: the new findings line up well with previous research supporting the idea that careful decision processes lead to good outcomes. For example, it is already known that careful decision makers are more satisfied with their careers, and that they perform better in school. There are also several studies showing that rational thinkers are less likely to be tricked by typical biases and errors that most people fall for.

Taken together, there is a growing body of research suggesting that careful decision-making predicts decision quality in a number of contexts, and that a rational decision style is effective and beneficial in many areas of life.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Sources, references and more info:
More information about the measure “General Decision Making Style” (GDMS) on the website of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (JDM)
Baiocco, R., Laghi, F., & D’Alessio, M. (2009). Decision-making style among adolescents: Relationship with sensation seeking and locus of control. Journal of Adolescence, 32, 963–976.
Crossley, C., & Highhouse, S. (2005). Relation of job search and choice process with subsequent satisfaction. Journal of Economic Psychology, 26, 255–268.
Curseu, P. L., & Schruijer, S. G. L. (2012). Decision styles and rationality: An analysis of the predictive validity of the general decision-making style inventory. Educational and Psychology Measurement, 72, 1053–1062.
Denes-Raj, V., & Epstein, S. (1994). Conflict between intuitive and rational processing: When people behave against their better judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 819–829.
Epstein, S., Donovan, S., & Denes-Raj, V. (1999). The missing link in the paradox of the Linda conjunction problem: Beyond knowing and thinking of the conjunction rule, the intrinsic appeal of heuristic processing. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin, 25, 204–214.
Epstein, S., Lipson, A., Holstein, C., & Huh, E. (1992). Irrational reactions to negative outcomes: Evidence for two conceptual systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 328–339.
Epstein, S., Pacini, R., Denes-Raj, V., & Heier, H. (1996). Individual differences in intuitive–experiential and analytical–rational thinking styles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 390–405.
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G⁄Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175–191.
Goldberg, L. R., Johnson, J. A., Eber, H. W., Hogan, R., Ashton, M. C., Cloninger, C. R., et al. (2006). The International Personality Item Pool and the future of public- domain personality measures. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 84–96.
Kirkpatrick, L. A., & Epstein, S. (1992). Cognitive-experiential self-theory and subjective probability: Further evidence for two conceptual systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 534–544.
Loo, R. (2000). A psychometric evaluation of the General Decision-Making Style Inventory. Personality and Individual Differences, 29, 895–905.
Scott, S. G., & Bruce, R. A. (1995). Decision-making style: The development and assessment of a new measure. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55, 818–831.
Wood, N. L., & Highhouse, S. (2014). Do self-reported decision styles relate with others’ impressions of decision quality? Personality and Individual Differences, 70, 224–228.

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Book Recommendation: “Decisive” by Chip and Dan Heath (2013)

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Career Development, Creative Thinking, Financial Decisions, Health Decisions, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development

Chip and Dan Heath (2013). Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work. New York: Crown Business.

Book Cover: "Decisive" by Dan and Chip Heath

I was impressed with this new book by the Heath brothers, a very helpful guide to decision making. It does not offer any formal tools to evaluate options, but a process with powerful ideas that are easy to apply to any personal or business decision.

They call their approach the WRAP process, an acronym standing for (1) Widen your options, (2) Reality test your assumptions, (3) Attain some distance, and (4) Prepare to be wrong.

Here’s a sample of some ideas that I’m finding very effective with clients as well as for my own decisions:

For widening your options, they propose the “Vanishing Options Test”: what would you do if the current alternatives disappeared? This question forces us to think creatively, oftentimes bringing better solutions to mind than the ones that seemed most obvious at first.

Also, consider opportunity costs: if I didn’t do this, what else could I do with the same resources?

Always think AND, not OR. Can you follow multiple paths at once?

For attaining some distance, they suggest the simple but powerful question: “What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?”

For preparing to be wrong, they introduce the idea of a “tripwire”: set a date or trigger for revisiting the decision. This will not only prevent you from getting stuck on a bad track, but it will give you a certain period where you will have the permission and peace of mind to fully commit to your current action plan, without tormenting yourself about whether this was a good decision or not.

Chip and Dan Heath also offer a great resources page on their website, with free cheat sheets and worksheets summarizing their process.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

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Thinking in a foreign language makes decisions more rational

Posted on by by Posted in Creative Thinking, Intuition

An interesting study that came out this year suggests that when people think in another than their native language, they are judging risks more rationally:

With several experiments, the researchers showed that those thinking in a foreign language did not fall prey to the typical biases and framing effects, and overall made more rational decisions than those thinking in their own native language.

Why is that? It seems counter-intuitive on first sight, but it makes perfect sense, if thinking in a foreign language helps us slows down. The more awkward way of thinking may lead to less automatic processing and help us think more deliberately.

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