Two Models

In this unit you will learn to use two decision-making methods. Each person makes decisions a little bit differently depending upon the person's learning style and personal context. There are many decision-making models or strategies. Most share common elements. These two strategies cover most of the common points for making decisions. Knowing a few common methods for making decisions will help you with simple situations as well as the most complicated problems.

• Advantages/Disadvantages Strategy - Making a simple list of advantages and disadvantages will be the first decision-making process you will explore. This process is best used for uncomplicated decisions where you are deciding between two choices.
• Detailed Strategy – This decision-making method is a detailed analysis of the situation you are trying to resolve. This process is most helpful when considering important, life-altering decisions.

HOW DO YOU MAKE DECISIONS?

For this activity, read each statement carefully and decide whether the statement is true or false for you.

Use a sheet of paper to plot your answers.

This is not a graded activity and your answers will not be sent to your teacher, so be honest with yourself.

The activity above is not designed to tell you about how you make decisions. Use it as a guide to determine where your decision-making difficulties lie. Look over your responses. If there are areas you'd like to change, think about ways to overcome these obstacles to effective decision making. On the other hand, this quiz also shows you your decision-making strengths. Look at the positive things you already do while making decisions. Is there a way to maximize your strengths? Is there a way to ensure you use those strengths in most of your decisions? In the next lesson, you'll be able to apply your strengths to real-life decisions, and explore where you can turn a weak point into a strength.

Part 2

Decision Making Approaches

Not everyone makes decisions in the same way. You may know people that seem to just "know" what to do. Other people may seem to consider every possible angle before making up their minds. Not only do people have different decision-making styles, but often people use a variety of different styles depending on the decision they're struggling with. For example, sometimes you may go with a "gut" instinct; other times, you might agonize over what to do; and sometimes, you might write out a step-by-step approach to make a decision.

As you analyze your own approach(s), as well as those of others, you can begin to consider how you want to strengthen your preferred decision-making methods. You can also see how people make decisions differently.

Rational:
Involves a step-by-step procedure. A logical approach with a balance between thinking and feeling. In other words it means "weighing the facts."

Impulsive:
Involves engaging in little thought about, or examination of, a decision before making it; taking the first alternative.

Intuitive:
Making a mystical, preconscious choice based on "inner voice;" just feeling that one of the alternatives is best without investigating or using information based on realistic considerations.

Delaying:
Postponing thought and action. Deciding by procrastinating and postponing a decision until a choice is no longer possible.

Fatalistic:
"What will be will be." Letting the environment determine the decision. Leaving it up to fate.

Agonizing:
Becoming lost in all the data, overwhelmed with analyzing all the alternatives, and ultimately becoming too bewildered to act.

Paralytic:
Simply being unable to move to a decision; becoming stalled because options seem to nearly equal in value, a reluctance to give up options or other avenues one could pursue.

What do you think? So, which approach describes you best? Do you have one predominant approach or do you mix a variety of approaches in your decision-making process? Are you concerned that you are not the most effective at making up your mind? Do you know people who make decisions differently than you? How do you deal with the differences? Does knowing about the different ways people make decisions make help you to understand their style? How?

Decision Making Obstacles and Challenges

Decisions do not occur in a vacuum, of course. With every decision there are obstacles and challenges that can get in the way of succeeding with your decision. If you know how you are most likely to lose your way in making important decisions, you have a better chance of avoiding those obstacles.

Another consideration for making decisions is the expectations of the decision-maker. A clearer awareness of these expectations will enable the decision maker to approach the decision with open eyes.

These factors may be getting in the way of making thoughtful decisions. As you read, think of how these may apply to you.

• Availability. If you know about particular careers, you are more likely to choose them. Sometimes merely calling attention to a choice increases the frequency of its selection.
• Familiarity. Knowing something about a career increases its chance of being picked.
• Salience. Something that makes the career stand out (like a high salary) can act as an unwarranted influence.
• Recency. The closer in time you’ve heard about an option, the more you may be influenced by it.
• Imaginability. The easier the career is to picture, the more it may influence choice.
• Learning Challenges. Any learning challenges or disabilities may make information processing more difficult. If information processing is difficult or if behavioral patterns interrupt learning, then it may be more difficult to make decisions because not all of the required information is in place.

General Obstacles:

• A general obstacle is too much attention on yourself. It is important to remember that any decision made has an impact on other people in your life.
• Limited self-awareness is an obstacle that results in not being fully aware of your own interests and talents. Some individuals focus so much on other people that they do not realize what gifts they have, themselves.
• The "What-if game" is an exercise in predicting outcomes of decisions. It goes like this:

"What if I choose _______, then ________ might happen."
"What if I choose to sleep through class today, then I may lose points on a test."
"If I put my hand on the stove when it is hot, I will get burned."

Fill in the blanks. Adjust the words as necessary, but the basic outline is if I do this, then that is more likely to happen. This is an exercise in deductive reasoning.

The more you know about yourself, your goals, and your situation, the better able you will be to envision how your life (and the lives of those around you) will be impacted by your decision.

Life challenges sometimes present obstacles that get in the way of good decision-making. Low self-worth, procrastination, stress, poor study skills, and substance abuse serve as challenges and obstacles to decision-making.

Definition Obstacles:

• Misunderstanding what the obstacle really is, is a common obstacle. Defining a decision as choosing a major when it is really a matter of choosing a career direction is an example of a definition obstacle.
• The decision focus may not be the most relevant; for example, are you focusing on meeting an immediate need, or looking at long-term needs is an example of choosing a focus. Choose the focus that is best suited for your situation.

If you have any questions about your focus, it may help to talk to a career counselor or someone who knows your situation.

Evaluation Obstacles

• With increasing amounts of information available, it is a challenge to know what to believe, what to listen to, what to use, and how to organize information. Information management is a concept that is being applied much more now that the world wide web makes it much easier for poor or incorrect information to become available to the individual.

A keyword search for "information management" in any search engine will deliver many places to go to learn more about evaluating information. Libraries worldwide are especially good sources to learn about information management

Action Obstacles

• Once a decision is chosen, it still must be translated into action. Moving from idea to action is a process that can run into a number of obstacles:

Choosing an inappropriate action. One way to know how to act or what action to take is to observe others in the same situation and see what they do. Imitation can be hazardous, but to observe others and "model" their behavior is one way to learn what to do.
Becoming paralyzed. To be paralyzed is to be unable to take the first step toward implementing an idea. There can be many reasons for this. Fear is one reason--fear of consequences and fear of making the wrong decision.

FEAR =
False Expectations that Appear Real

Caution:  For the brain to translate a thought into an action requires a chemical process. If paralysis is a major problem that happens in many areas of your life, it is recommended that you see an appropriate counselor or physician to determine if the paralysis is the result of a brain injury or a behavior that can be changed..

Options

• An obstacle to decision-making is not knowing about your options. If you think that your choice is between A and B, but you don't know that C, D, and E are also available to you, you will make an uninformed decision. Effective decision-making involves knowing your choices.

Part 3

Introduction

With the knowledge gained from your decision-making history, you can investigate ways to improve your current and future decision-making strategies. No matter how well you have made decisions in the past, there's always room for improvement. Comparing your past strategies with the strategies offered in this lesson enables you to pinpoint places where you can make improvements. An important thing to consider is that another person can see points that you may have difficulty identifying because you are very close to your situation. It is often helpful to discuss your decision-making style with someone who knows you well and can help you identify weak points in your decision-making strategy.

You will investigate two decision-making strategies in this lesson:

• An advantages/disadvantages list; and
• A detailed, step-by-step plan.

The Detailed Strategy

The Detailed Strategy in decision making is a more in-depth analysis than the Advantages/Disadvantages Strategy. You'll find that this strategy is better suited for complex or difficult decisions that require much thought and consideration.

Advantages/Disadvantages Strategy

Often the easiest and most widely used approach to make a decision is to make a list of the advantages or disadvantages involved. The approach you will learn about in this lesson is a more detailed variation of a basic "pros and cons" list. This approach is most valuable when deciding between two options:

This method can be used for very simple decisions or more complex ones provided you've investigated both of your options. If you're starting at the beginning of your decision-making process and are trying to arrive at a very important decision, try both the Detailed Strategy and the Advantages/Disadvantages Strategy to see which works best for you.