A632.9.3.RB
Role
of Emotion in Decision Making
Who
hasn’t let their heart hijack their brain?
No one is immune.
As a
youth, it happened more often that it does now.
I remember falling in and out of love multiple times once I decided that
girls did not have cooties. This ridiculous
behavior made me make so many wrong or rash decisions. An example of this was when I was seventeen
years old and living with my mother and step-father in Colorado. I had fallen in love with a girl that I went
to High School with. I was so crazy in
love that when my parents decided that they were going to move back East, I
refused to go. At first, they were dead
set against me staying. I told them that
when I turned eighteen, I would move back.
They finally gave in and I moved in with my girlfriend’s Aunt and Uncle
and my parents moved back East. A few
months later, it was discovered that my girlfriend was pregnant. So, I enlisted in the Army, graduated from
High School a semester early, went to training, married my girlfriend, moved to
Washington State with her and my young son, then to Germany with child number
two, then to Texas and was divorced after only eight years of marriage. All due to matters of the heart.
Ok,
you might think that this story is not that out of the ordinary and maybe it
isn’t. However, before all of this occurred,
I had intended on becoming a doctor. I
had my plan laid out…I took the right classes in High School…had a college
chosen and read all I could get my hands on about medicine. My mother would brag to people that I was
medical school bound. Well, the heart
controlled the brain and here I am today…53 years old, retired from the Army,
three grown children, teaching High School, and not a doctor.
So,
this is one way to look at how emotions can affect the decision-making
process. However, emotions can work to
your advantage in other respects. Baba
Shiv (2011) discusses how emotions can provide positive results especially in
sales and marketing. I know exactly what
he means. When I was an Army Recruiter
and then a Career Counselor, I had to really stimulate the emotions of my
potential recruits and retainees. Sure,
I could speak to the minds of the individuals by discussing Training,
Education, Adventure, and Money but seemed so clinical. As a recruiter, I spoke directly to what
excited them…their emotions. The same
thing applied to my retainees but it was slightly different. These Soldiers had already spent time in the
Army. Their decision to remain or get
out was often tied to emotions. Some of
these emotions were good ones where others were not. Some Soldiers were just ready to leave. These were hard sales. Often it would require offering them new opportunities
or even money to convince them to stay.
As
you can see, two completely different scenarios, with totally different effects
of emotions. In both situations, I
achieved “my desired” outcome but in the personal reflection, I did not achieve
my original life goal. As a recruiter, I
did not convince every person to enlist and as a Career Counselor, I did not
retain every single Soldier. But in all
situations, emotions played a crucial part.
Reference
Shiv, B. (2011). Brain Research at Stanford: Decision
Making. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRKfl4owWKc
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