The Decision Strategist

Have you ever noticed how many issues we consider to be a line between two polar opposites? Liberal and Conservative, good and evil, against the war and for the war, against and for any issues or group really, in a relationship or not in a relationship, pro-life or pro-chocie…you get my point.

We experience a world of false dichotomies.

But worse, we like them. We like situations that are views as a choice between two opposites because it makes our decision easy. We don’t have to consider all the different factors that should affect our decision. It also meshes well with whatever story we are telling ourselves and allows no room for ambiguity. And it is the most effective form of rhetoric.

In short, it reduces the possibility of experiencing cognitive dissonance (wikipedia).

But the real world is almost always more complicated than that. Our tendency to think in dichotomies makes us especially susceptible to manipulation and decision making errors.

• Framing Effects. Presenting situations as a dichotomy allows people to frame the debate in such a way that they cannot lose.
• Metaphorical Thinking. Along with framing effects, we respond more emotionally to dichotomies, and quickly identify ourselves with the position we want to be associated with.
• If-Then Fallacy. It is already easy for us to fall prey to the if-then fallacy, but if we are thinking of a choice as a dichotomy, it is even easier. If-then fallacies work by getting us to accept the initial if statement, which conditions us to accept the then statement even if it has no relation to the if statement.

One common false dichotomy is commonly referred to Morton’s Fork. Morton’s Fork is a situation in which you have to choose between two unpleasant options. Often this is a false dichotomy and there are a number of other solutions to a problem that aren’t being considered.

The result is statements like these:

“It’s either get a divorce or stay in an unhappy marriage.”

“I hate my job but I can’t leave it.”

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

“Either we fire more workers or we reduce the pension plan.”

“We were either created by intelligent design or by evolution.”

There are numerous others (of course sometimes a dichotomy isn’t false, I don’t mean to suggest that evolution is a debatable topic for serious people).

When making decisions, especially ones that are emotionally difficult or seem to have no good option, it can be helpful to remember that there are probably options you haven’t considered. If you’re only considering two diametrically opposed choices, what options are available that occupy a middle ground? What other dimensions of criteria are there that might expand the number of available choices?

-zot.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 10:27 am and is filed under Decision Making, Human Error.