I only know the basic premise of the human decision making process and why we chose to act on particular choices over others. It has been said generally (exact citation anyone) that we make decisions about what to act upon by gathering our options and then comparing the percieved effort, the percieved chance of success in the effort, and the perceived reward once the action is complete. Generally, we pick what we percieve as the most optimal choice that weighs these three axioms. Personality of the individual obviously plays a pivitol role in constraining a persons level of acceptable risk, desire for rewards, etc.
I feel that efficient/wise decision making is a trancending issue for modern civilization. For three reasons in specific:
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We have more valid/acceptable choices/options than any other time in history. This is not to say that there are objectively more options, we know that human choices are fundamentally infinite, allow an example to elaborate my statement: While an agrarian boy of the 1800’s could desire a college education, the probability of success in that effort was too low for it to become commonplace, as was the situation for many other life desires. This is no longer the case, many options are now very achievable, at least in 1st world countries.
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Time sensitivity is much more important in today’s rapidly changing societies. The Marxists railed against the destruction of the artisan way of life, but nothing compares to today’s skill set obsoletions. Just look at computer code evolution, a computer scientist, formally trained in the 90’s would be next to worthless in today’s tech world without retraining and retooling. This is the case with product life cycles shortening, businesses that make the incorrect choice are unable to rebound fast enough to catch their competitors. Referencing Clayton Christenson’s books on what he call disruptive innovation, no one company in the hard drive manufacturing world ever stayed dominant for more than one product life cycle. This is because small players can make faster decisions and eventually take over the slower, bigger manufacuturers. This has occured in the industry to present day.
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The explosion of valid information resources has made it difficult to pin down a percieved “best choice.” This is not to say that things were better when less information was available, people used to make terribly damaging decisions because of the lack of good, easily attainable information. But to be clear, the perception of good choices was easier to attain when information was more limited. Now it is more doubt producing and second guessing when an individual can cross reference say all national bank free checking offers or compare all engineering colleges and realize that on the surface they are all ABET certified, have laboratory space, excellent professors, etc.
All this said, I am looking for writings, or community thoughts on addressing today’s growing issue of efficient decision making. As Mises points out, economics is a science of human action, preceded by human thought. I want to learn more about how humans can make better decisions so that their actions reap the rewards they desire.