Jun 22
Human Decision Making is Rarely Rational
As humans, we find ourselves in situations daily that require us to make decisions. These decisions vary in importance and have different results. Some decisions are simpler to make, like what to eat for breakfast, or are more complex decisions, like business investments. No matter what the context, our choices are influenced by outside factors such as the fourfold pattern, framing effect, and emotional appeal. These factors ultimately reveal to us that, as humans, our decision-making is not rational.
I wanted to illustrate how these outside factors affect an individual’s decision-making skills. I started this process by researching the best way to demonstrate this information, which I found was a Venn Diagram. These factors can overlap when someone is deciding on something, which is difficult to illustrate. A Venn Diagram helps to share the similarities and differences with each tactic and how they can overlap.
My first sketches for this concept were simple because I only had three factors that affect decision-making. I utilized three circles and placed each aspect in one of the circles, and cited their similarities and differences inside them. On the outside of this diagram, I believed providing imagery correlating with each factor would help the overall message.
My final design was similar to my draft, but to illustrate that these factors affect humans, I utilized a human silhouette behind the Venn diagram. This way, it would be apparent to an audience who this theory affects. Surrounding the outline are images that correlate with each factor, with a pink tint to relate it to the similarly colored Venn diagram. This poster was utilized in a survey of eight random people to test the human decision-making theory. The respondents were told to analyze the poster to answer the following questions but were asked personal questions about their decision-making abilities. The overall goal of this survey was to prove that humans are risky decision-makers.
The system for understanding human decision-making in risky situations is called the fourfold pattern. This pattern is influenced by the human connection to loss and the fear of it, which affects decision-making. The fourfold pattern predicts human behavior in risky situations; it can determine decisions in accepting settlements in cases such as lawsuits, lotteries, or casino gambling. In these situations, people subconsciously and consciously analyze the risk and act according to whether it will result in a high or low probability of gain or loss. In a survey, they were asked, “Do you actively consider high and low probabilities of outcomes before making an important decision?” Their responses showed that they think through their decisions all the time or most of the time. Risky situations are considered by people utilizing the fourfold pattern.
Data visualization helps exploit the strengths of the human visual system, which consists mainly of an automatic process to allow people to perceive relationships in complex data. These are strengths like edge detection, motion detection, and face recognition. These factors significantly affect an audience because they provide information and data that influence decisions. This is because humans are biased due to vivid imagery, which holds emotional value on people’s personal vivid imagination and memories. Biases are formed to how choices are worded, which is called the framing effect. How options are framed affects people’s decisions, it presets our mental “accounting” to a certain level, which we perceive gains and losses from a new level. An example is an information on a yogurt container; if one says, “contains 20% fat”, that does not read to an audience as a good purchase. If it reads “80% fat-free”, it makes an audience believe it is a better and healthier choice, even though it is the same.
“I think surrounding environments and influence of others have a strong emotional hold on the individual trying to make the decision. Overall, I think people have a good idea of what is irrational and rational when making decisions I think every situation is different based on circumstances.”
It is common to exploit the strengths and weaknesses of people’s decision-making through methods that influence emotions. When others manipulate emotions, it is difficult for the person experiencing them to reason when making decisions. This is most seen in advertising, where companies use imagery, music, and more to influence their audience emotionally. When a survey asked, “How often do your emotions control your decision-making?” the participants had varying answers. Still, all of them agreed that their emotions affect their decisions. Although they consciously agree that emotions only affect them daily, weekly, or occasionally, emotions may affect all their decision-making. When asked if the respondents were surprised at how much emotions control their decisions, none of them were surprised. One stated, “I think surrounding environments and influence of others have a strong emotional hold on the individual trying to make the decision. Overall, I think people have a good idea of what is irrational and rational when making decisions I think every situation is different based on circumstances.” This is an excellent observation of how outside factors affect an individual’s decision-making skills. Emotional decision-making affects people differently due to the different biases and personal history with decision-making.
Overall, it has been proven that human decision-making is not rational due to factors such as the fourfold pattern, framing effect, and emotional appeal. Through this process, I have learned valuable information on how humans make decisions and experienced the design process through the testing phase. I faced complex design problems and had to find solutions to display this theory accurately and creatively. The most significant difficulty I had in this process was deciding how I wanted to illustrate the theory. If I were to change anything about my finished poster design, I would adjust the images in the background to correlate better with each theory factor. I would do this by adjusting the colors in the background to match each circle in the Venn diagram better. Although this process challenged me, I am thankful for what I learned from the theory and about myself through this design process.
Thank you for reading my analysis of “Human Decision Making is Rarely Rational”.
-Bailee Fox
