Question

Do you think intuition is respected as a decision making style? Do you think it should be? Why or why not?

2. Describe a time when you fell into one of the decision making traps. How did you come to realize that you had made a poor decision?

Answer 1

1. No, I don't think intuition is respected as a decision-making style. Although intuition influences our decisions most of the time as it based on perception, instincts, and feelings, it cannot be considered as a rational decision-making style. The problem is the decision-making is not based on facts or evidence and intuitions are not always reliable. The few reasons why it should not be considered as a style in making decisions are:

• A flaw in the information- Due to the lack of data, the information used here is not reliable or accurate as it is based on previous experience. The failure to evaluate the events properly can result in bias and error in judgment.
• Bias due to emotions- An individual can be prone to bias due to the feelings involved in making the decision. According to cognitive research, there is an influence of unrelated emotions in making decisions.
• Prejudice - Preconceived notions of an individual or the event itself can prevent you from hasty generalization fallacy and result in a flawed judgment.
• Lack of consideration of alternatives - SInce the decision is not based on facts, information, or data, the alternatives that those factors provide are ignored.

2. One of the experiences of falling into the decision-making traps was when I was trying to pick a university to finish my Masters's degree. I was a victim of the confirming-evidence trap here. After writing a few competitive exams to get into colleges. I had scored about 93 percentile and chose the colleges that reached out to me rather than picking one from the list. When I had to make a final choice in selecting a university, I only looked for links and reviews where the universities that reached out to me were a part of the top list of universities. I kept looking for confirming evidence of my decision to join the university that called me instead of actually evaluating the reviews of every top university before making the decision.

I realized my poor decision after having conversations with other experts and others who gave me reliable links for reviews of universities. This helped reevaluate my decision-making even though I had made one already.