Decision making is the process of selecting a belief or a course of action among several alternative possibilities. According to psychologist Daniel Kahneman, humans use two basic systems in the process of decision making. The first system is fast, automatic and institutive. The second system is slower and provides a more analytical approach.
Strategies for decision making can prove useful, but the rigid use of such strategies can also present challenges. There are many factors that influence decision making. For instance, concept formation is the innate ability to connect similar events, people, and things in order to use pre-existing patterns to base decision on. Another strategy used in decision making are heuristics. Heuristics are a type of trial and error thinking. This is the mind’s way to limit the number of solutions to a problem. These types of strategies develop throughout life. The video also covers insight which is the ability to understand the true nature of a situation and is typically intuitive in nature; though, insight can develop based on experience. There are many factors that skew decision making including stress and biases and emotions. Common biases include overconfidence and confirmation bias.