the hidden forces that shape our decisions

But surely I can trust what I cognitively take in? Alas, it’s not so simple. It found that prisoners were more likely to be granted parole early in the day or after the judges had lunch or other snack break.

An example of this is a study done in Israel on parole decisions. Even if you think you are being rational, your emotions may have already come into play without you recognizing their influence. Many researchers-and I advocate this position as well-argue that emotions actually precede cognition. If you emerge from a work meeting saying you feel upset, how is that interpreted by co-workers? Are you disappointed about the new strategic change that was just announced, angry that leaders did not involve more people in that change, or frustrated that your team has to lead the strategy without full buy-in? Same information, multiple interpretations depending on how granularly and carefully you examine the information.Īnd we can be influenced without even realizing it. There are many differences in how we think about emotions and label them. It can be a sign that I am simply listening to you. It can indicate happiness, but it can also signal embarrassment, anger, shyness, politeness. But there may be up to 19 different meanings of a smile.

We think that, because we have so much experience with smiling, we know what it means. Consider something as simple as the ubiquitous smile. In the case of emotions, we often simply misinterpret what we see. The important thing is that they influence us, so we should do what we can to understand when, why and how-and leverage this for good. Yet we live our lives unaware of, and sometimes purposefully ignoring, these hidden forces that may lead us in both right and wrong directions. I have since also learned how and why many of the behaviours and perceptions that we take for granted are, similarly, not always what they seem. I had seen in my professional life that they were ever-present, but had often been told-and even trained-to ignore them. One of my first aha moments when I started graduate work was to learn the ever-evolving science behind why emotions are actually not irrational.

The hidden forces that shape our decisions