.tl 70 .lm 10 .rm 65 STRESS AND THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS by Diana Morabito EMGT 266 December 7, 1983 .PG 1 .ft ''%'' .TM 5 .BM 3 .pl 55 .ls 2 .fi .jt Decision making is one of the most stressful aspects of life. Decisional stress is "the simulta- neous opposing tendencies within the individual to accept and reject a given course of action" which produces such symptoms as "hesitation, vacillation, feelings of uncertainty, and signs of acute emotional stress whenever the decision comes within the focus of attention" [Janis, p.46]. Other symptoms include increase in heart rate, insomnia, loss of appetite, and irritability. The process is so unpleasant that some people even refuse to make decisions! This is obviously not a practical solution. Fortunately, it is possible to make quality decisions and reduce the overall stress of the decision making process. To do this, one must first understand all stages of decision making. The first stage of decision making is called the predecision or conflict stage. This is the stage before the person has committed to a decision. There are many factors which cause the decision maker stress during this stage. The amount of stress associated with a decision depends on the possible consequences of the decision. A decision of little importance will cause little stress. Thus it is more stressful to choose a place to work than it is to buy an ice cream cone - even if there are 32 flavors! A decision will be less stressful if it can be easily changed if it turns out to be incorrect. Once you have chosen a place to work it is difficult to retract your decision, because other companies that also offered you a job may have given the job to another applicant or you may suffer a financial loss from not working. There may also be social constraints that make it difficult to change your mind. For example, your peers may lose respect for you because they think you are capricious. However, if you decide that you do not like the flavor of your ice cream, you may buy another ice cream cone with little financial loss and with no social stigma. A choice between two things that are different is more stressful than between two things that have many elements in common. This is a result of "cognitive overlap". "The greater the cognitive overlap between the two alternatives, that is, the less the qualitative distinction between them, the smaller the dissonance that exists after the choice has been made" [Festinger, p.41]. If job A and B both are the same position, with the same salary, and the same distance from home, there will be little conflict in choosing one over the other. A decision will be more stressful when the choice is between solutions of similar desirability but little commonality. If job A is undeniably superior to job B there will be little stress in choosing job A. There will be more stress during this phase if the person has previously made bad decisions. This is called "anticipatory regret". It is defined as "the main psychological effects of the various worries that beset a decision maker before any losses actually materialize." "Such worries, which include anticipa- tory guilt and shame, provoke hesitation and doubt, making salient the realization that even the most attractive of the available choices might turn out badly" [Janis, p. 222]. This is actually a positive source of stress since it discourages people from making hasty decisions. The external conditions under which a decision must be made has a large effect on the level of stress produced. Conflict theory attempts to describe the means by which external conditions interfere with the process of quality decision making. It defines two behavioral responses to external conditions. They are defensive avoidance and hypervigilance. Defensive avoidance may occur because the person has either insufficient or excessive information to make a decision with confidence. When this occurs the person loses hope about finding a satisfactory solu- tion. With not enough information the person fears making a decision because of possible unknown negative consequences. In fact, lack of necessary information was cited as the most stressful part of the job for many information professionals who complained that they "never get the information I need" [Ivancevich, p.802]. Because of information overload, called cognitive complexity, the person feels the decision is too com- plex. This causes a high degree of anxiety which interferes with their thinking process [Janis, p. 17]. Information overload occurs because people are only able to pay attention to a limited number of pieces of information at one time. Defensive avoidance takes many forms. The person may try to avoid making a decision at all, which is procrastination, or try to shift responsibility to someone else. Furthermore, they may gather support for the least objectionable choice in order to increase its desirability, at the same time ignoring possible nega- tive consequences. This is called bolstering. They find support from peers who agree with that particular choice and simply avoid people that disagree; or they collect information that supports their decision while ignoring negative information. The person may even misinterpret information received to substantiate their position. The people who employ this tactic usually maintain low levels of stress, but will become emotionally alarmed when faced with negative information. If the person has hope about finding a solution, but they perceive that there is not adequate time to find a good solution, they panic. This is called hypervigilance. Their increase in stress is so great that it interferes with their ability to make a decision. They listen to all available information without screening the quality of the information and vacillate from one choice to another. Studies about disasters show that "when people are warned about oncoming danger that will materialize within a very short time interval, their fear mounts to such a high level and they act so inappropriately that they would be better off with no warning at all" [Janis, p.59]. Conflict theory states that a quality decision will not be made under conditions which foster defensive avoidance and hypervigilance. However the situation is not hopeless. The person who loses hope about finding a satisfactory solution may increase their level of confidence by seeking out more information and talking to people who may see other alternatives. When a person perceives that there is not enough time to make a decision, they may try to extend the deadline. The second stage of decision making is the commit- ment stage. This has the effect of solidifying the decision. "Following public commitment, the decision maker realizes that others are affected by his decision and expect him to hold to it. The stigma of being known as erratic and unstable is in itself a powerful negative incentive that inhibits even discussing with others the possibility of reversing a decision. The decision maker knows that failure to adhere to a commitment may lead to severe penalties, adverse social criticism, and loss of self-esteem." [Janis, p.280]. These factors may cause the person to adhere to course of action even when negative consequences ensue. The last stage is called the post-decisional stage. The person has made their decision and now must live with it. The theory of cognitive dissonance describes this stage of the decision making process. It states that when inconsistency or dissonance exists between two cognitions, which are "knowledge about the environ- ment, oneself, or one's behavior", a person is uncom- fortable and will strive to reduce the dissonance [Festinger, p.3]. "When a person makes a decision, a corresponding behavioral element is established and his cognitions about the alternatives among which he has chosen are then consonant or dissonant with this ele- ment. All the favorable aspects of the unchosen alter- natives and unfavorable aspects of the one chosen are dissonant with the choice" [Erlich, p. 98]. Dissonance may be reduced by the reduction or addition of cognitive elements. Searching for positive information concerning the decision will increase the consonant elements. The act of commitment also adds a new consonant element, because of the added social pressures to maintain the decision. Decreasing the importance of the remaining dissonant elements will also reduce the dissonance. For example, one may decide that the probability of the negative outcome is so low that they can ignore it. Dissonance may also be changed by an attitude change of the person. "The amount of attitude change following forced compliance is an inverse function of the amount of reward given for compliance" [Brehm, p. 17]. This is because the amount of dissonance is greater when the reward is less and the person will try to relieve the dissonance by changing their attitude. When the reward is great, however, the person can rationalize their compliance since the rewards far outweigh the drawbacks. The degree of stress experienced by the decision maker is directly proportional to the quality of the decision made. If the person has investigated the problem sufficiently, they will be more confident of their decision and will be emotionally prepared if a possible negative consequence materializes. However, if the person encounters unforeseen negative results, they may abandon their decision and return to the conflict phase, with the result that there will be added negative social stigma from retracting the deci- sion and added anticipatory regret. One way to increase the quality of the decision made is to use a decisional balance sheet. Figure 1 shows an example of this as applied to the decision to choose a college. Consequences are divided into four categories : .ls .nf .nj 1. Utilitarian gains and losses for self such as financial gains and career advancement. 2. Utilitarian gains and losses for significant others such as the person's company or political organization. 3. Self-approval or -disapproval such as the person's moral standards. 4. Social approval or disapproval, especially that of people who are considered to be experts or of people who are important to the decision maker [Festinger, p. 180]. .ls 2 .fi .jt The decisional balance sheet was shown to encourage people to "select a wider array of alternatives in formulating the decision, to express less regret and report less concern about their choice following a decision, and were less interested in receiving suppor- tive, dissonance reducing information" [Mann 1972, p. 291]. Since the balance sheet encourages the person to consider all possible negative consequences, they can prepare for these consequences and are less likely to abandon their decision when these negative consequences occur. This is called "emotional inoculation". This occurs because "whenever a person anticipates a given type of negative feedback, before executing a new decision, he is stimulated to find (through information seeking or memory scanning) an appropriate form of reassurance that will enable him to believe the deci- sion will work out favorably despite the anticipated setback" [Janis, p.158] This has implications for the place of work. It was shown that the turnover rate for people given realistic information about the job was lower than for people who were only told the positive aspects. "Being informed in advance about the setbacks to be expected on a new job makes an employee less likely to become disillusioned and to reverse his or her decision when setbacks are subsequently encountered." [Janis, p. 156] Another technique that is used to increase the quality of the decision making process is called emo- tional roll playing. "Emotional roll playing sets up a make-believe situation that forces the individual to take a role in which he must confront information and ideas that until then have been ignored or successfully blocked out" [Mann 1967, p. 334]. A case was cited that described a woman who intended to divorce her husband. Initially her balance sheet showed few negative consequences about the divorce and emphasized the negative consequences of staying married. When she was asked to imagine what life would be like if she were not married, she realized that she would be lonely and miss her husband. Although she still decided to get a divorce, she was able to make plans to reduce her loneliness after separation by sharing an apartment with a friend. In this case, the post-decisional stress that would have occurred as a result of this unexpected result was minimized by her expectation of the consequence [Janis, pg.380-381]. These techniques can be used to increase the qual- ity of the decision made by individuals and groups. They are derived from the understanding of the deci- sions making process as described by both conflict theory and cognitive dissonance. They should be incor- porated as techniques used in a holistic approach to stress management. .PG .ls .nf .nj figure 1. Balance Sheet Used to Choose College Alternative #1 Alternative #2 Harvard Yale Utilitarian - Choice of living gains for at home or on self campus. - Great - Great Engineering Engineering Department Department - Offers scholar- - Generous ships to enable scholarship students to live aid on campus - In Boston Utilitarian - If I lived at home, - I would be losses my urge to do compelled for self school work would to live be less away Utilitarian - My family would gains for save money if I others lived at home - I would be able to live with my friends and family Utilitarian - My family would losses be forced to for pay more for others my education - I would not be able to return home that often .pg figure 1 continued Social - Most people - Most people Approval consider it an consider it an honor to attend honor to attend Harvard Yale - It will enable - It will mean anyone to attain alot to me when high goals I get out of school Social Dis- approval Self - Prestigious - Prestigious Approval university university - reflects on my - reflects on my ability to do ability to do good work good work Self - too academic - too academic Dis- approval .PG BIBLIOGRAPHY Aronson, Elliot. The Social Animal. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, Third Edition, 1980. Brehm, Jack W. and Arthur R. Cohan. Explorations in cognitive dissonance. New York: Jon Wiley & Sons, 1962. Broadbent, D.E. Decision and Stress. New York: Academic Press, 1971. Coch, Lester and John R. P. French. "Overcoming Resistance to Change." Human Relation, 1948, I, 512-532. Erlich, D.,G. Guttman, P. Schonbach, and J. Mills. "Postdecision Exposure to Relevant Information." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1957, 54, 98-102. Fesinger, Leon. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. White Plains, New York: Row, Peterson and Company, 1957. Ivancevich, Jon, H. Albert Napier, and James Werherbe. "Occupational Stress, Attitudes, and Health Problems in the Information Systems Professional". Communications of the ACM vol. 26 no. 10. (October 1983) 800-807. Janis, Irving L. and Leon Mann. Decision Making A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice, and Commitment. New York: The Free Press, 1977. Mann, Leon. "The Effects of Emotional Role Playing on Desire to Modify Smoking Habits. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1967, 3, 334-48. Mann, Leon. "Use of a Balance Sheet Procedure to Improve the Quality of Personal Decision Making: A Field Experiment with College Applicants." Journal of Vocational Behavior, 1972, 2, 291-300.