How Do We Decide...We Don't

Through extensive research, I’ve examined various aspects of the process of decision making. As in most studies, researchers have different opinions on how we make decision or in some cases, the possibility that we don’t make any of our decisions. In the very first post I did, I talked about an article where the writer, who married a woman just like his mother despite first believing that he wouldn’t, stated that he thinks we make decisions based on trial and error. While his friend on the other hand, did and believes the complete opposite: our decisions are based on how we were raised to make decisions, and the only way to actually make a good one is to overcome that “knowledge”. This was one of my favorite articles, because of its in depth look at personal opinions and real life situations.
The book I read about my topic is called blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Blink is all about the subconscious reasoning of the mind. It’s all about the way we make decisions without actually thinking about it. Maybe you’re an expert on sculptures and can tell that the one you’re looking at isn’t real in a mere glance. Or perhaps you’re a police officer and you suspect that the person you’re following has a gun, and you need to decide whether or not to shoot him before he shoots you. Gladwell hopes that one day everyone will believe that “the task of making sense of ourselves and our behavior requires that we acknowledge there can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.”
As for the interaction part of this project, I chose to get a group of diverse people to complete the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The test takes what Gladwell says in blink, and lets the taker explore what they’re really thinking subconsciously. I asked my volunteers to take the Gender-Career test and/or the Weight test. The Gender-Career test asks the volunteer to choose between a connection with men/career and women/family or men/family and women/career. The basis is to figure out whether or not someone believes women are more family driven than men and vice versa. The Weight test is the same way. The test taker is asked to choose between a fat person’s relation to bad words (ex. horrible, terrible, ugly, etc.) and a skinny person’s relation to good words (ex. happy, pretty, loving, etc.); compared to a skinny person’s relation with bad words and a fat person’s relation to good words. Results can vary between slight, moderate, strong and little to no preference.
Through all my research, what I learned is that we don’t make our decisions. At least, not consciously we don’t. Even though I do believe this, I also believe that there is no real solution to how we make decisions. No one has fully figured it out. I’m not sure if it can be figured out. There is so much information and so many various opinions out there on the brain and how it works. Everyone is different. There’s always the chance that on person’s heart may rule over their head. While another person may stick strictly to completely logical based facts for every single scenario they encounter in life. The only things I wish I would have done are being more motivated/ doing everything in a less stressful manner, and reading How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer along with blink. I know the point of this was to answer the question you were curious about at the beginning, but in this case I’m not sure I can choose between conscious/subconscious and heart/head.