Can we make truly unbiased decisions?
a four minutes read.
As a psychotherapist, I frequently discuss emotions, thoughts, behaviours, and other psychological factors influencing our lives, yet I rarely address life decisions. Furthermore, I emphasise my limitations to interfere in patients’ life choices, as what’s ideal for me might not align with their personal preferences or their best interests.
Ultimately, our life choices significantly influence our mood, life satisfaction, and mental well-being. To name an example, the choice of a life partner dramatically changes the course of one’s life; however, such a significant decision is often based merely on subjective factors.
To clarify, I don’t think using subjective criteria for our decision is inherently wrong, especially if those criteria are based on our needs. I frequently advise my patients to identify their needs and base their decisions on them. When competing needs arise, they should choose the most crucial one, accepting that others might not be fulfilled.
Yet, when addressing religion, politics, and other deeply rooted cultural elements, our needs alone don’t provide a basis for decision-making; our belief systems become the guiding force. Unfortunately, our beliefs and needs don’t always align. More exactly, I think we don’t seek religion, but rather life’s meaning to alleviate our fear of death. Rather than aligning with a political party, we seek a community that represents and supports our interests and values.
The problem of decisions based on beliefs
To my mind, religions, political systems, and cultural factors are means to an end, not the ends themselves, in satisfying our needs. This assumptions is whats the guiding idea of this blog post. What criteria do you use to determine your beliefs? In this age of misinformation from influencers, social media, and AI, how can we make truly objective and accurate decisions?
It’s a fact, not just an idea, that we rarely know if a decision is good or bad until we see its consequences. How can we reduce potential negative outcomes when deciding who to hire, which presidential candidate to support, or where to invest our resources?
Be aware of the function – For example, during presidential elections, candidates spend considerable time outlining their personal beliefs and ideologies on issues such as family values, economic growth, and their leadership approach. The main question is whats their actual role is and what they can truly accomplish. The Romanian president’s power is primarily legislative, lacking significant executive authority. The relevant discussions that should be considered are the commitments to new laws and efforts to strengthen diplomatic ties, according to their roles and duties within the state. So understanding the role is crucial in selecting relevant informations and distinct it from propaganda and chatters that has the rol to influence and misguide opinions.
Selecting the appropriate criteria – The ethical and moral qualities of a presidential candidate outweigh their religious views, family status, and other related factors when making a selection. A future president would benefit from possessing charisma, optimum level of openness, high conscientiousness, high emotional intelligence, strong public speaking skills, negotiation and influence abilities, the capacity to gracefully handle criticism, conflicts and contradictions.
Keeping the reason in mind. – The president’s ethical and character profil, qualifications, competencies, and functional role should guide our decision, with minimal consideration of information from social media, the press, or other sources. It’s true that our assessments of the candidates are limited to the public videos and information, so it’s hard to know how they’re really like. However, selecting the proper decision criteria remains crucial.
In summary, I believe that asking three questions can help us make more objective choices in areas beyond our immediate needs, especially when our belief systems are involved, even though we may not immediately know if these decisions are correct. To begin with, what is the role or function? What criteria are relevant, and which are irrelevant, to our decisions? How can we avoid irrelevant information’s influence? May your decision-making process be productive, objective, and useful.
