I’m fascinated with how people make choices. If you are too, I suggest Jonah Lehrer’s excellent book, How We Decide. I highly recommend it; you can get a flavor for some of it in his interview on this podcast (around 10:05 in).
He does a great job of exposing the fallacy of the "logic model" – the idea, which many people have, that they make decisions on a purely logical grounds. We actually control fewer of our choices than we realize, and instead are driven by three factors.
1. Expertise – what feels right?
If you have real expertise in something, you make decisions almost without thinking. This is very instinctive decision-making. Think a writer picking out his next word, a mechanic working on an engine, or a musician playing. They are making thousands of little decisions very smoothly, often without even realizing they’ve just made a choice.
2. Self image – who do I think I am?
With many decisions, we’re really answering the question, "who am I?" Am I the type of person who buys a sports car or a minivan? Am I the type to stay out late or go home at a responsible hour? In the end, we are all trying to square our decisions with our sense of ourselves.
3. Public image – what will others think of me?
The flip side to #2. More than we believe, we are driven either to conform or rebel against others’ perceptions of us. If I take this job, what will people think of me? If I choose this vendor, what will my boss say?
