There’s no question that all of us are under an unusual amount of stress. And it’s important to note that when we are under acute levels of stress, our decision-making process is impaired. Yet, while much of our lives are on hold, there are still important decisions that need to be made, both in our personal and professional lives. Here are a few things that you might want to consider before you make major decisions in your life.
The decision-making process is multi-dimensional and involves a series of steps such as: (1) recognition of a problem or objective, (2) generation of alternative actions, (3) evaluating possible alternatives, (4) making a choice among the alternatives, and (5) implementing the choice (Kowalski & Vaught, 2003).
When we are under stress, we have a tendency to:
Continue what we are doing, ignoring information about the risk.
Adopt whatever alternative is most strongly recommended.
Avoid making a decision or shift responsibility to someone else.
Search for a way out of the situation and impulsively act upon a hastily conceived solution.
Any one of these actions could have a serious impact on the quality of our decision-making process.
A BETTER WAY. Many experts in the field of decision making recommend a process that involves:
Searching for relevant information.
Assimilating information in an unbiased and objective way.
Carefully evaluating options before making a choice.
To help you avoid some of the pitfalls of making decisions under stress, here are a few practices that you might find useful when you’re faced with making an important decision:
Use a balance sheet exercise. This pre-decision process provides us with a means to realistically confront and answer the questions about the potential risks and gains, which may not have been previously contemplated. Without a systematic approach of listing risks and gains (or pros and cons), even the most motivated and alert person may overlook some vital dimensions of the problem being considered. The "balance sheet" approach is useful because it enables us to thoroughly evaluate alternatives and consequences (Janis, 1982).
Use check lists. Preventing potential decision failures might also be avoided by preparing a checklist of goals or objectives for whatever alternative you select. This will help slow down the decision-making process to objectively evaluate each option against a set of objectives (Kruglanski, 1986).
Heighten the fear of failure. Some experts in decision-making processes advocate having someone provide reminders of the negative consequences of the various courses of action. This helps us become aware of potential biases and thereby decrease the likelihood of being impacted by faulty thinking (Kruglanski, 1986).
Avoid setting a fixed time period. Creating a deadline or fixed requirement for a decision to be made adds stress to an already stressful situation. Creating an artificial deadline may require processing too much information in a short period of time, which could lead to less rational decisions. Whenever possible, allow enough time to gather information and evaluate solutions (Billings et al., 1980).
Our goal in providing this information is to highlight the impact of stress on decision making. It’s also to provide you with a few options that can be used in combination with other processes to help you avoid making mistakes – mistakes that may not have happened in a normal environment. The following is an exercise that might also be helpful in developing the ability to “pause before reacting” and give you time to consider the process you’ll use to make an important decision.
References
Billings, R. S., Milburn T.W. & Schaalman M.L.(1980). A model of crisis perception: A theoretical and empirical analysis, Administrative Science Quarterly, 25(2), 300-316.
Gok, K., & Atsan, N. (2016). Decision-making under stress and its implications for managerial decision-making: a review of literature. International Journal of Business and Social Research, 6(3), 38-47.
Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Kowalski, K.M. and Vaught, C. (2003). Judgement and decision making under stress: An overview for emergency managers, International Journal of Emergency Management, 1(3), 278-289.
Kruglanski, A. W. (1986). Freeze-think and the Challenger, Psychology Today, August, 48-49.