If we stop to think, we can observe how much of the risk behaviors for our own health and well-being and that of the community are the result of unconscious decisions in which external pressures outweigh one's own determination. For example, alcohol consumption may be the result of advertising, peer pressure, or the tradition that alcohol "belongs to men." All this leads us to develop this article on Psychology-Online where we will address the topic of decision making: a method of solving problems autonomously and responsibly.
In all these situations it is consumed because of an unconscious decision, without reflection, caused by outside pressure. That is why it is so important to encourage autonomous decision making. But what exactly does that mean? Let's clarify some terms:
- Autonomous decision making: the person learns to think for himself, to be critical and to analyze reality in a rational way.
- Responsible decision-making: The person is aware of the decision made and accepts its consequences.
For a specific situation, make decisions autonomously and responsibly it is weighing the pros and cons of the various possible alternatives in a situation and accepting the consequences of the choice. Thus, when a decision has to be made, the possible consequences that can be derived from it must be assessed and, if these consequences may be important it is advisable not to do the first thing that comes to mind or to get carried away by what "all the world". When we are faced with a problem or a decision that can have important consequences, it is necessary to think carefully about what can be done and assess each alternative.
You learn to make decisions. Autonomy develops from childhood, and each age corresponds to a level of autonomy. During childhood many important decisions are made by parents and others adults, but from adolescence, decisions are increasingly the responsibility of the young. In this learning process it is also important to distinguish when it does not matter to give in to the wishes of others or other pressures and when it is important to follow your own criteria.
If the ability to make decisions is learned, it can also be practiced and improved. It seems that skilled decision-makers have the ability to classify different options according to their advantages and disadvantages and, once this is done, choose the one that seems best option. The basic method would be:
The Five Step Process
1. Define the problem. With this step you have to try to answer the question of What do you want to achieve in that situation?
2. Look for alternatives. In this step it is important to think about as many alternatives as possible, since the more we can think of, the more possibilities we will have to choose the best one.
It is important to avoid getting carried away by what we usually do or what others do.
If we can't think of many alternatives, asking other people's opinions can help us see new possibilities.
3. Assess the consequences of each alternative. Here we must consider the positive and negative aspects that each alternative may have, in the short and long term, both for ourselves and for other people.
To carry out this step correctly, the information available is often not enough. In this case, it is necessary to collect new data to help assess the different alternatives available. For example, a person who wants to start practicing a sport, when evaluating the different alternatives, if you do not have enough data, you will need to collect information on: where you can practice different sports suggested; what material is needed; need for prior learning, what costs do they have, etc.
For each of the alternatives separately, we will make a list of all the advantages and disadvantages that it entails. Next, we will give a score from 0 to 10 to each advantage and each disadvantage according to its importance, taking into account that: 0 is “not important” and 10 means that it is “essential or very important". Finally, once each advantage and each disadvantage has been scored on that scale, the numbers given to all the advantages on the one hand and all the disadvantages on the other are added. If the result is positive, it is that it has more advantages or these are more important than the disadvantages.
4. Choose the best possible alternative. Once the available alternatives and the consequences of each of them have been thought through, the most positive or appropriate one will have to be chosen.
Once the different alternatives have been evaluated, we must compare them with each other, choose the one that most satisfies us. As a general rule, the one that has more advantages than disadvantages, or if we use the mathematical procedure, the alternative that has the highest positive number.
Sometimes the best alternative is not any of the proposals but rather it arises as a combination of several of the proposals. In the example, we can decide on a specific sport (soccer, basketball, tennis, etc.) or we can choose to choose several that are complementary (for example, swimming for fitness and soccer as a way of relating to friends).
5. Apply the chosen alternative and check if the results are satisfactory. Once chosen, we must take responsibility for the decision made and put it into practice. We must also worry about evaluating the results, with which we can change those aspects of the situation that are not yet satisfactory and we can also learn from our experience.
Next, we will practice each of the steps in the decision-making process with an example.
SITUATION: A person wants to do some activity on Saturday afternoon, but he has no preferences for any.
1. Define the problem. In this specific case, before starting to think about what type of activity we are going to carry out, we should ask ourselves the following question: What do we want to achieve?
The answer to this question will help us to correctly state the problem before us. For example, in this case, some answers might be:
- Interact with other people.
- Help to be healthy.
- Have fun.
- Make it cheap.
2. Generate alternatives. Once we are clear about the problem, the task is to think of alternatives to solve it. Some alternative solutions could be these:
- Take an excursion
- Go to the movies
- Go to the disco
- Play football
In order not to complicate the process, we have thought of four alternatives, but we can propose as many as we want.
3. Assess the consequences of each alternative. For each alternative separately, we will consider the advantages and disadvantages that it may have. Now we will give a score from 0 to 10 to each advantage and each disadvantage according to its importance. Then we will add the total advantage scores and subtract the total disadvantage scores.
4. Choose the best possible alternative. All that remains is to choose the alternative with a higher overall positive score. This alternative is the ideal one, and it is not worth continuing to dwell on the matter.
5. Apply the chosen alternative and check if the results are satisfactory. We only have the weekend to come to carry out the activity we have chosen. Once we have done it, we will assess whether it has been effective in solving the situation for which we had no answer.
We can practice the process of making decisions with specific problems that arise in our daily lives, here are some examples:
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
Decision making: a method for solving problems autonomously and responsibly
