How do we make

decisions?
Maiele Girelli – Upper B 2022
 Summary

01 03 05
Intro 02 Influences 04 Conclusion

Theories Distortions
EVERYDAY you make aroud

35.000
decisions

The Wall Street Journal

What I’m going to wear today?
Pants? Skirt?
 Where do you want to travel to?

USA? Europe?

Latin
Africa?
America?
 What do you want to study?

Law? Architecture? Medicine?

To make these decisions, we use some criteria. Each
person has their own criteria, based on their life
story and experience.

Most part of them don’t have a wrong or right

answer, even if we regret the choice we’ve made.
 Researches
1940 1979

1 1970 3 Today

The beginning of 2 4
Heuristic studies
decision-making
studies on economic
sciences First research in Do we have an
experimental answer?
cognitive psychology
on decision-making
processes.
Heuristic
Is a strategy your brain uses to decide based on unconscious thoughts,
using our memories, experiences, and the contexts we know. Sometimes
it is useful because we save time, but it can also be dangerous to make
certain decisions without thinking consciously.
 Theories

Bernoulli Kahneman and

Utility as a criterion to choose:
“which will be more useful for
me?“
Tversky
Our choices are based on
subjective values, considering the
probability of gains and losses that
we may have.
 Theories

Damásio and Bechara

1997
The emotions and implicit
factors of cognition helps us to
define our choices beyond a
purely rational analysis.
 Influences
Injuries in the prefrontal cortex

Excessive stress

Strong emotions

Some medicines

Use of psychoactive substances

Steps of decision-making process

1 2 3

Evaluation Decision Evaluation

of and and
each option management accommodation
We need to pay attention to is the interpretation
we make of each situation, before deciding and
after receiving the results of each choice.

But sometimes we misinterpret some situations

on our life experience.
 Cognitive distortions
Polarized Thinking
“Or I’m perfect, or I’m
nothing”
Catastrophizing
“I got a question wrong
on my exam, I'm going
to fail.”
Personalization Mind reading
“My boss criticized the “I believe that they think
team but I'm sure it was I'm a failure”
just for me.”
Overgeneralization Mental filtering
“Something went wrong,
“I didn’t learned how to play
guitar, so I’m not able to play so I have a horrible
life.”
any instrument”
Tips for better
decisions
 Don’t making hasty It can be helpful to
decisions without get another person’s
thinking the pros and perspective
cons

1 2 3 4 5
Think about your If a decision no
Recognize our own goals, values and life longer feels right for
distortions, feelings story you, rethink your
and something that
options
might interfere
 References
Tonetto, Leandro Miletto, Brust, Priscila Goergen e Stein, Lilian Milnitsky. Quando a
forma importa: o efeito de configuração de mensagens na tomada de decisão.
Psicologia: Ciência e Profissão [online]. 2010, v. 30, n. 4, pp. 766-779. Disponível em:
<https://doi.org/10.1590/S1414-98932010000400008>.

Stanborough, Rebecca Joy. What Are Cognitive Distortions and How Can You Change
These Thinking Patterns? Healthline, 2019. Disponível em:
<https://www.healthline.com/health/cognitive-distortions#thought-origins>

Malloy-Diniz, Leandro Fernandes; Kluwe-Schiavon, Bruno; Grassi-Oliveira, Rodrigo.

Julgamento e tomada de decisão. Editora Pearson Clinical Brasil, 2018, 1ª Edição.

Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1997). Deciding
advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science,275(5304),.
Thank you!
@maigirelli
+55 54 99619 0420
maygirelli@gmail.com

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