You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can’t lead to a good conclusion.
Decision-making is not a single act but a cognitive process involving perception, values, memory recall, and risk assessment. It often boils down to balancing potential reward against possible risks. A deliberate decision is different from an instinctual decision. In the 1980s Benjamin Libet found that neural activity related to a decision can begin hundreds of milliseconds before a person reports consciously deciding. Recent research pushes this time window even further back into seconds before conscious awareness.
Our emotions can help us in decision-making through condensing complex cost-benefit analyses into quick intuitive feelings. Whereas memory retrieves past experiences relevant to the present situation. External events and experiences can often play a significant role in decision-making as the mind and the environment act as a “coupled system” that can be seen as a complete cognitive system of its own. In a way, the mind is extended into the physical world. So decisions blend the possibilities of world states with what we see as fact, and our interpretation of them.
You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.
Links
- Emotional and Cognitive “Route” in Decision-Making Process: The Relationship between Executive Functions, Psychophysiological Correlates, Decisional Styles, and Personality: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11274958/
- Cognitive processes of decision making: https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/health-and-medicine/cognitive-processes-decision-making
- The Cognitive Process of Decision Making: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220115992_The_Cognitive_Process_of_Decision_Making
- Collaborative Decision-Making Theory: https://www.communicationtheory.org/collaborative-decision-making-theory/
- Decision-making: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision-making
- Consensus decision making: https://cultivate.coop/wiki/Consensus_decision_making