Does emotions affect

women and men Entrepreneurs in

decision making in
different ways
 Do emotions differ in men & women?
Emotions in both men and women were common but the percentage of certain
emotions would be higher in either men or women which actually differentiating the
decision-making capability between men and women in certain situations.

 What kind of emotions affecting men and women in taking different decisions?
According to the study there is significant difference between decisions taken by both
men and women only in few emotional scenarios, on the other hand based on other
emotions there isn’t any significant difference between decisions taken by them, its
not they differ but the difference is very small and can be unnoticed.

Emotions that differentiate men and women decisions were:

o COMPASSION: concerning compassion, the degree of adherence was
significantly higher for male entrepreneurs. These results show that women
feel less pity. Men, but not women, before dismissing an employee for a good
reason, consider the trauma that this dismissal will cause to the employee’s
family and sometimes even reverse their decision. When hiring an employee,
they favour candidates who are unemployed over those who have a job. Men
attempt to think of all the possibilities before making a decision in order not to
hurt an employee’s feelings.

o ANXIETY: Men actually were really high anxious persons when compared to
women. Men when assigned to take decision on difficult things or when given
task to taken decisions on multiple things, they feel more anxious and results
in low decision-making capability, on the other hand women can handle this
better than men.

o ANGER: The result for dissent shows that male entrepreneurs have a
significantly lower degree of adherence in this sense than women
entrepreneurs. Male entrepreneurs tend not to speak to other about the
complaints of colleagues. They avoid becoming aggressive or going on the
defensive with their subordinates, and do not lose their tempers over petty
matters. But when men are in anger, they take decisions they regret later.

o OVER CONFIDENCE: Men are more individualist. Male entrepreneurs

have a significantly higher degree of adherence than women entrepreneurs
 regarding individualism. What does this mean? It means that they make
decisions without consulting anyone (seeking to persuade others that they feel
right). Male entrepreneurs are over confident in decisions taken by them which
are not complex in nature. Therefore, at times they are considered as lone
decision makers.

o SURPRISE: They like things to go according to plan in order to avoid

surprises. Male entrepreneurs when asked to take decisions spontaneously
might result in less efficient decision.
 EFFECT OF STRESS ON
DECISION MAKING
 High burden due to heavy information: In information overload situations, a
decision-maker faces what Herbert Simon called “a wealth of information [which]
creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among
the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. The information age
is drowning us with an unprecedented deluge of data.  Ways for acquisition of
information developed rapidly, the decision-maker’s cognitive capacity did not and
limited information processing capacity per time unit are two decisive factors
explaining why decision-makers cannot incorporate an overly high level of
information given limited time.

Decision makers performance will increase when the information related to the topic
is available only to an extent. Once the information provided is more than the ability
of the decision makers to evaluate then the decision making performance will
gradually decrease, since they will overlook many important things in order to go
through all the data and they loose interest and hence decision making performance
will decrease gradually.

 Overall Effect of Stress on decision making:

o Frontal Lobe: The frontal lobes are important for voluntary movement,
expressive language and for managing higher level executive functions.
Executive functions refer to a collection of cognitive skills including the
capacity to plan, organise, initiate, self-monitor and control one's responses in
order to achieve a goal.

o Limbic System: Limbic System is the part of the brain involved in our
behavioral and emotional responses. When limbic system is active we only
take decisions based on our behavior and emotion at that time which impact
decision in either way.

When the stress level is normal our frontal lobe will be active and if stress
level is increasing then frontal lobe will get inactive gradually and results
in activation of limbic system. This results in decrease in decision making
ability.

According to the international journal of business and social research the study
is to verify whether emotions and feelings influence the decisions of
entrepreneurs differently in terms of gender. The findings suggested that out of
9 different factors under study 5 showed significant differences in decisions
taken by men and women, which are compassion, anger, surprise, anxiety and
over confidence and on the other hand based on other emotions there isn’t any
significant difference between decisions taken by them, it’s not that they differ
but the difference is very small and can be unnoticed. Men tend to face
decision situations as an intellectual challenge and were reluctant to take
others opinion before taking any decision if it is not a complex decision. Even
tough men are compassionate enough but when in anger they take decisions
which will make them feel regret in later stage. Whereas women showed a
greater tendency than men did towards following factors: jealousy and
dissension.

According to Business research on information overload in information age,

study shows that in the light of the information age, information overload
research in new areas rises rapidly in many fields of research in business
administration with a variety of methods and subjects. In information overload
situations, a decision-maker faces what Herbert Simon called “a wealth of
information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention
efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might
consume it. The information age is drowning us with an unprecedented deluge
of data. Ways for acquisition of information developed rapidly, the decision-
maker’s cognitive capacity did not and limited information processing
capacity per time unit are two decisive factors explaining why decision-
makers cannot incorporate an overly high level of information given limited
time.

Decision makers performance will increase when the information related to

the topic is available only to an extent. Once the information provided is more
than the ability of the decision makers to evaluate then the decision making
performance will gradually decrease, since they will overlook many important
things in order to go through all the data and they loose interest and hence
decision making performance will decrease gradually.