Personal Example Of Effective Decision Making

Introduction:
Effective decision making is typically thought about as being a logical cognitively driven process. Contemporary research on decision making have acknowledged the influence of motivation and emotion on decision making. When emotion and motivation impact a short term decision in a way that is contradictory to a long term logical goal, decision errors or negative outcomes can occur. We all allow these emotions and motivational influences to affect our short term decisions from time to time. When positive outcomes result from these biased short term decisions, it can reinforce the use of emotion and motivational influence as an effective decision making tool. This essay will use personal examples of emotional and motivationally influenced decisions that initially provided positive outcomes, then in subsequent

Gutnik, Hakimzada, Yoskowitz, and Patel (2006), discuss the differences between thinking in ‘the cold light of day’ versus in ‘the heat of the moment’. “Thinking in the cold light of day is more likely to be based on more rational, knowledge-based inferences, whereas thinking in the heat of the moment is generally faultier and more likely to contain irrational justifications for risky, yet personally desired, behavior” (p. 725). Take for example a situation where someone in a relationship finds themselves alone with someone outside of that relationship that they find physical attractive, and that person makes clear they are interested in a physical interaction. The logical response is to not act on the situation, but the emotion of arousal can certainly impact the persons’ logical decision in this situation. Fear is a natural emotional response designed to protect us, but fear is not always based on rational things and allowing fear to dictate a decision could lead to a bad