I am up early morning and before I realize ‘am awake’… I have my sports shoes on. I am half asleep when I start jogging, but soon all the senses come alive. I try to go the distance till my muscles feel exhaustion. When I stop, I try controlling my breath. Sometimes while returning, there is a paper vender, whom I chat with. I ask for a specific paper on Saturdays’, as my wife likes to read the supplement which comes along with the main newspaper. Sometimes they are over before I reach the paper stall. Then I have to walk some extra distance to get a copy. Finally I come back home. All this happens in not more than 30 minutes of a day.
If we look at small instances of our lives (like an hour or two), we find that our body/brain is taking decisions continuously. Sometimes we are conscious of it, some are intuitive. Some decisions are important (as they influence our future) others have a short term effect. We opt for options provided to us by external conditions. That is a response towards stimuli. Other way round sometimes we drive the situations. Some decision making is at a level of biochemistry, which does not always involve conscious. In other words, our neurons do not participate in it. The physiological decisions have definite constrains within which each organism as a system has to function. As in my case, the sprint should end when a tiring feeling comes. This is a pure biochemical decision. I have to stop when the oxygen supply is not adequate in comparison to what my body is burning in that rigorous activity. Cells have to metabolize anaerobically producing loads of lactic acid in my muscles. So I stop for a breath.
The other level (tier) of decision making system involves brain. Concepts such as ‘right/ wrong’ come into play at this level. This comes under the domain of behavioral psychology. An old friend passes by, judging the affection that you two share, goes out the response; a handshake, just hello, a scream or a hug. Human decisions either follow a rationale or are based on emotional grounds. The later is true in most of the cases though. Again when it comes to logic, how much rational is our rationality is a subject of debate. It seems we cannot overcome the hard-wired errors we are predisposed to. But ignoring this aspect, momentarily let us focus on the two types of decision making systems one can follow; 1) rational 2) emotional.
The emotional intelligence humans possess can be looked at from two very different angles. The usual way of looking at it is the social view. Bonding between individuals of a species, empathy, development and maintenance of culture is the part of it. Second is the biological view. It depicts that the traits (like trust, empathy, altruism) we possess, do not exist because they represent the ‘righteous’ path, but simply because we are programmed to. These traits will find their roots in the urge for survival. We can observe that our emotions are greatly based upon intuition, which we can hardly explain. Hence, when intuition is relied upon, we take decisions first and then justify them with reasoning, which is acceptable to the society. Acceptance by society, group or community has a major influence on our judgments. If one tends to go against the consensus, the person is either called a ‘rebel’ or the person himself will experience guilt and take back the decision.
The other side, i.e. rational or logical, is relatively easy to understand. There lies a simple logic, limited parameters and mostly calculable consequences when it comes to rational decision systems. Even if we are convinced that logic driven systems are more accurate, you will see that humans believe what their ‘heart’ says. Why is it so? Why is it that we mostly go by our intuition rather than taking a learned decision? Is it that our brain already knows that its ‘heuristics’ are far better than the calculations it can perform (in other words does it prefer speed over accuracy)? Or are we simply lazy? The answers must be lying deep hidden in cognitive neurology and behavioral psychology. But as biologists (students of natural sciences), it’s our job to decipher reason behind the choices we make. So next time when your brain decides to go ‘Left’ ask it why not ‘Right’?
