Effective decisions: the intelligent ability

Synopsis: The common assumption is that important decisions need the most rationality. But being stuck on ‘logic’ doesn’t guarantee the best choice.


Decisions, important or unimportant, are made throughout the day. The common assumption is that the more important they are, the most rationality is need.

So smart, so dumb

But ‘common assumption’ may be wrong. Psychologists noticed that an academically brilliant politician persistently made whopping errors in functional social relations.

How could somebody so smart be so dumb? Their answer – his ‘intelligence’ lacked the requisite emotional quotient for effective social interactions.

Another intelligence

In other words, being stuck on logic doesn’t guarantee the best choice. Astute decision-making must include ‘intelligence’ of another kind – emotional.

This is defined as the ability to:

• perceive, appraise and express emotions accurately
• access and generate feelings to facilitate cognitive activities
• understand emotion-relevant concepts and use emotion-relevant language
• manage one's own emotions
• manage emotions of others
  

And in the process one promotes growth, wellbeing, and functional social relations between self and others. This, the highly intelligent individual was quite unable to do, and hence his political career sank.

Findings of choice

Researchers at the University of Amsterdam went so far as to hypothesize that routine issues need conscious thought, but those that are vital don’t.

The hypothesis was confirmed in four studies, in the laboratory and also among actual shoppers, on simple and complex consumer purchase choices.

From their experimental findings, the researchers concluded that:

Simple choices…indeed produce better results after conscious thought, but choices in complex matters … should be left to unconscious thought.

Go with gut

That is, quite in reverse to common assumption, unimportant decisions (such as between different towels or different sets of oven mitts) can be thought about rationally.

But important decisions (such as between different houses or different cars) need the assistance of emotions, and inputs from the intuitive mind.

Bottom line – for effective decision-making, it’s better to tune in to gut feelings.

Cont’d 2…the cutting edge