Making Snap Decisions: Part I

Our brains are incredibly efficient at making sense of the world around us. Through a process called heuristics, our brains use prior knowledge and experiences to quickly and unconsciously make sense of incoming stimuli. 

You know that moment in horror movies when one of the characters runs off by themselves to investigate an ominous noise? Often when that happens, an almost palpable wave of frustration hits the audience as they say to themselves, “NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” The audience, most likely, isn’t pausing to carefully and objectively consider the possible outcomes of the situation, but, rather, reacting quickly based on their existing knowledge of the genre. This lightning fast leap to a decision (i.e., to feel frustrated or bewildered) based on prior knowledge/experience is heuristics at play. 

Now consider this: have you ever had that frustrated reaction in a movie because you just knew what was about to happen, but it never did? Yep, still heuristics! Here’s the thing: while heuristics can be useful when a snap decision is necessary, they aren’t always precise. This tends to be effective in potentially dangerous situations (i.e., better safe than sorry) and it’s pretty harmless in our movie example, but how might the impact shift when we’re talking about interpersonal relationships? Attachment? Prejudice? 

Over the next month we’ll be digging deeper into what this can look like in both close relationship and passing encounters, as well as tools to support responsiveness over reactiveness. In the meantime, I challenge you to start getting curious about areas in your life in which your brain may be trying to lighten your conscious decision-making load. Above all else, please practice compassion with yourself. Heuristics are a resourceful tool; they’ve helped get you this far, after all!