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Our daily lives involve making choices: to do this or that, to go or stay, to spend or save. Whether the situation is life threatening or petty, these choices ultimately define who we are as well as shape our lives. Sheena, Iyengar, the author of the book “The Art of Choosing” asks questions concerning the reasons about how and why people make choices. Why do people sometimes make choices against their best interests? Is the reason for making that choice inert or culture bound? Iyengar’s award winning book highlights on the profound and surprise nature behind these reasons. In a world filled with diverse cultural and political forces, interconnected commerce as well as revolution in technology, Iyengar’s book attempts to act as a guide for the far-fetched challenges and consequences involved in our choices.
Chapter 1 point 1
Steve Callahan was cruising in the sea, and his boat unfortunately capsized some eight hundred miles west of the islands in Canary. Callahan found himself stranded in an inflatable raft adrift at sea all alone with limited resources. He managed to survive for 76 days when he was later found by people on a boat. Another survivor, Simon Yates had to endure crawling across a glacier with a broken leg for five miles after a hiking accident with his partner Joe Simpson. He managed to reach a base camp five days later where he was saved.
Point 2
Sometimes suffering accompanied with persistence can reap no rewards, with heartbreak for possible distress goes unrecognized.. Some researchers used test rats and immersed them in jars filled with water with onrushing jets of water from the top such that they had to swim continually. Some rats would only swim for a few minutes and later on succumb while others would go on for 60 hours before they finally drowned due to fatigue. Did the rats that succumb shortly after just simply give up while the others somewhat believed there would be a way out?
Point 3
The desire of making choices lies within us, acts as natural driving, force, and even though we develop this action because it is fundamental for our survival, it will more often than not occur independently of any viable benefits. In these cases, our power in making choices is so crucial, that it not only becomes a means to an end, but also develops into something of intrinsic value as well as necessity.
Point 4
Choices are sometimes made out of instinct. These conditions may simulate the wild environment for an animal but the main difference is that they do not worry about shelter, safety and finding food. These animals feel engraved in a death trap because they have minimal influence on their lives. Consequently, several zoos over the years have reported attempted escapes by various animals. Their instincts would ultimately lead them to make escape decisions despite the easy life they lived.
Point 5
A person’s perception on helplessness or control is not wholly determined by outside forces. We have a choice of making decisions by altering our mind’s interpretation of circumstances. Callahan and Simon’s decision to survive is a good example for this point. By asserting control and authority in a situation that seems utterly impossible to succeed, people can improve their likelihood of success. Perceiving negative results one’s life will ultimately lead to higher chances of succumbing to depression.
Point 6
Sometimes people make decisions oblivious of the dangerous risks in the forefront. A decade long research was concluded and the findings involved two categories of individuals. One, the people who work at high paying jobs are exposed to the job’s high pressures, and those who work in lesser paying jobs characterized by minimal stress. Employees with minimal pay were at a greater risk of sustaining coronary heart disease as compared to their counterparts.
Chapter 2 Point 1
The association between religion and personal happiness has strong bonds in terms of frequency of attendances by religious people as compared to their religious beliefs. Majority of the benefits in religion are not perceived from one’s belief in God or gods, but is rather attributed to an increase in social support guidance in life from beneficial association to a religious group, or an assistance in the process of implementing self control.
Point 2
Highly structured environments that display secular qualities in religion take, for example, the military service eventually have an effect on an individual’s character by building it. Lacking a religion does not mean that does not have a natural driving force that one can focus into. Individuals who lack religious beliefs in turn pay their reverence to other beliefs that boost their moral as well as giving them encouragements.
Point 3
The bridge that connects democracy and individualism, as well as communism and collectivism is deemed as evidence that solicits freedom as a special product; one that hails from cultures in the western region characterized by individualistic qualities. Moreover, cultures that collective group individuals greatly tolerate oppression as well as recognizes due authority. Communities with cultures that encourage these qualities often find themselves in positions where there are bridging gaps.
Point 4
Love in marriage is a very fundamental principle. The change in social attitude towards marriage from the era where marriages were planned, has led to marriages doing away with the conditions of love while striving to reciprocate friendship conditions. A very few percentage of couples, merely ten, were found to maintain the original love and affection many decades subsequent to their marriage. For the other remaining ninety percent, the love and affection present in the early stages of the marriage sought of withers away.
Point 5
Decisions by people to engage in marriage regardless of whether or not they display affection towards each other are due to specific choices. These choices are determined by the influence on self-representation by culture. A research carried out between two groups concluded that students in America would display a neural activation response in the medial and anterior cingulated cortex in matters relating to self-judging circumstances. The other group of Chinese culture displayed activity in those neural areas when passing judgments about familiar people.
Point 6
People often tend to make choices and decisions in relation to driving forces that are seemingly in accord with the situation at hand. I can draw a good example from the saying that goes “God helps those who help themselves”, which an ideology in the western culture that can be traced back many centuries. People tend to act in a situation believing that a higher deity will reward their efforts, be the action right or wrong.
Chapter 3 Point 1
In this chapter, Sheena discusses linkage between a multilayered concept and self-contradiction rhetoric scenario of Whitman. Our situations become more complex in situations where we are able or in a less position to establish reconciliation or balance in the multidimensional structures within us. People will tend to wallow in a zone of cognitive dissonance when at the mercy of two conflicting forces. These two forces are more often than not our actions and beliefs.
Point 2
Even in situations where we tend to consider that we that we are in control of our personal unique traits and qualities, or when we think we are walking in a path leading to our self-discovery, we are interconnected between relations that are either internal or external. This relationship is in relation to what we personally believe about our selves, society’s perception of ourselves and the manifestations of our actions.
Point 3
As the world is changing, the people are changing accordingly. Change will manifest itself in numerous ways. It can unexpected, planned, be imposed on by others or by ourselves. Regardless of the change and the manner through which it will manifest itself, we determine the way we react. Our reaction is witnessed in multiples ways. Many people will react in relation to their beliefs and culture.
Point 4
When people are challenged by situations that test their willpower, despite the determination to uphold their morals and beliefs, people not always stand by their convictions. The repercussion often leads us to reconciling our actions to our morals and beliefs. This may be through committing ourselves to measures that curb us from repeating the action, lying to ourselves, or by incorporating that action among our very own beliefs and morals.
Point 5
We often tend to conform to different standards in the society. These norms go on to describe us onto to the extent of how we should speak, dress and who and how we interact. Our judgments on these issues hail from our external and internal relationships. Therefore, our individualism will depend on the people we relate to. Either this or what is popular in that given time.
Point 6
Cognitive dissonance will often occur in my occasions, with or without our knowledge. Different scenes of our everyday life will always come in mind such thinking about whether one will pass a test or not, or whether they had prepared adequately. However, what stands out in these situations is that when we develop an identity, we tend to try side step dissonance when all the while we are supplementing it.
Chapter 4 Point 1
Reflective and automatic systems are, in the primal thought of choice and judgment; they are of both equal importances in the case of controlling an action. Take for example; one is walking down the street while at the same time engaging in a debate. These actions will require both systems as to maintain stability in walking and talking. This system may be referred to as analytic and heuristic processing.
Point 2
Tendencies to perform a certain habit by people due to their previous behaviors especially in childhood are more often than not carried into adulthood. Many people have a habit of doing something unpleasant to their personal beliefs and morals. Despite the fact that they are ready and willing to quit that particular habit, they find it hard maybe because it has already blossomed to an addiction.
Point 3
We will always have a tendency of making decisions with regard on the outward appearance of a situation, or through the ways our minds make out a situation. An excellent example is how people in casinos continue to spend more money in gamble machines that are activated using chips instead of cash. This partial vividness of the situation allows people to continue gambling because they cannot outwardly see the money they are spending.
Point 4
The biases and heuristics of our judgments are only a fraction when it comes to situations that determine our choices. This describes how someone’s understanding of a situation will ultimately affect his or her choice or decision. We tend to make choices with regard on the circumstances in a given situation regardless of whether of our decisions are biased or sincere.
Point 5
Another point is that people continually make decisions for their own personal reasons; reasons from facts that sometimes we are not consciously aware of. It may seemingly look like we sometimes live instinctively through decisions that may seem to come unexpectedly. This manifests itself in our daily lives, which involve the petty decisions of one makes unconsciously.
Point 6
Every crucial decision is made from sufficient debate as well as thinking. People will always fully analyze a situation before making a decision as well having in mind all the possible repercussions of every choice made; and then ultimately making the sound decision. However, people unknowingly think too much and therefore affect the outcome of their choices.
Chapter 5 Point 1
Numerous instances on the limits of our abilities to process information as well as process it, are all drawn from the circumstances drawn from our environment, as well as our judgment. The fact that we make choices dependent on the situation at hand ultimately leads to its success even though the intended result was not intentional.
Point 2
Our decisions are mostly filled with theories that make a simplifying assumption that people are capable of analyzing in a rational manner the cons and pros of every possible alternative in a viable choice that is designed to eventually lead to maximizing the benefits to an individual.
Point 3
Observations on contributions those are influential on the processing abilities of people that are aimed in making decisions. The effort people utilize in the process of comparing the available options; the process of selecting the most beneficial option could eventually prove to worse compared to the very first option that displayed quality in threshold.
Point 4
People continuously make decisions. These decisions however vary in terms of the amount of analysis put towards them. Decisions that are; say petty in nature, do not warrant the human mind to engage in detailed analyses. On the other hand, we will all engage in sufficient debate as well as seek the necessary guidance before we arrive to a conclusion in the event of a pressing matter.
Point 5
When people are required to make a decision concerning a particular issue on a daily basis, they usually end up make the same choice concerning that issue each day. On the other hand, when called upon to make a choice in advance for several days, people usually make differed choices on the same issue.
Point 6
The choice of satisfaction heavily relies on the previous conditions as well as our actions subsequent to the choice made. We all make choices with the due intention of enjoying the eventual benefits. A choice made will have its repercussions eventually but sometimes we make choices subconscious of the outcome. We may either be satisfied or dissatisfied by our choices eventually.
Chapter 6 Point 1
People were born to choose. Notwithstanding this, however, people are also supposed to create meaning in the process of their decision-making. Meaning and choice are interconnected. Decisions play the role of defining our personal identities. These choices are in turn determining by the meaning we intend for them. We are in a position to alter some meanings while others remain beyond our control.
Point 2
Meaning displays a fundamental relevance as compared to choices and decision-making. What is the meaning of the decision that you are making? Behind every decision lies a profound reason as well as meaning held by the one making the decision. However, it does not matter where the meaning or reason is of a noble nature or not.
Point 3
A choice or decision made will always lead to consequences that will either suit our intended benefits, or will at the extreme lead to unwarranted consequences. There is therefore a significant inter relationship between a choice made, happiness or regret. The decision made may end up suiting our needs. This would either be the case or we would find ourselves regretting making that respective choice.
Point 4
There is a complex relationship between choice and freedom. Nevertheless, this two have a significant point in determining our lives. However, they are at given times not in accord with each other. Having the freedom to make too many choices eventually overwhelms us leading to unpleasant results. Choices, both momentous and mundane are ultimately shaped by either invisible or visible forces.
Point 5
Having numerous choices to choose from is not a pleasant thing. There are numerous times when we find ourselves in situations where we are faced with many options to choose from. There is a notion that more is less as we have a tendency of lacking to make a choice in these kinds of situations. Some options do not offer us choices at all. For some of us, having to make a choice leads to a dilemma.
Point 6
Culture in itself plays a crucial role in determining the ideology about what or who makes the decisions in these situations. There is a distinct difference between the ways in which collectivist and individualist cultures endeavor in the processes of arriving at their choices. Numerous choices demand someone to over think before arriving at a conclusion; a situation that is not at all necessary.
Chapter 7 Point 1
Sometimes we are required to make choices in situations where we would rather not. Take a situation whereby you have to make a decision of undergoing an operation that could probably lead to your demise. Either risk taking the operation or risk living with the illness, which will ultimately take its toll on you eventually leading to early death.
Point 2
Making a choice is not an easy thing especially when you are faced with a conundrum and the two available options are not pleasant. By taking either of the options, the repercussions are seemingly dire. We usually end up asking ourselves whether to make a decision or to leave the whole situation uninterrupted and let fate take over the situation.
Point 3
Exactly at what point should a decision cross for it to be referred no longer be as a choice. Does it have to be life threatening or does have to be a situation where we are compelled by the situation to make the decision. Apparently, we sometimes face situations where we are not in a position make a choice pertaining to our best interests.
Point 4
All decisions and choices we willingly make are aimed to be of our best interests. The final chapter however, highlights on situations characterized with dire circumstances. We therefore find ourselves making choices that are not in regard with our best interests. Some choices will ultimately lead to dissatisfaction or fail to fulfill our intended benefits.
Point 5
The optimal point of every decision or choice dwells between very little and infinity, and that the optimal point is greatly dependent on the persons context, situation as well as the circumstances involved. When face in a situation where the options are very limited, we will either make a decision that is on the extreme or one that is not.
Point 6
A decision, regardless of the implications it will make will be dully addressed and analyzed before it is selected. In the situation where we have limited choices to make, people will have a tendency of analyzing the situation very carefully attempting to forecast the repercussions of the options at hand. Eventually, we all end up making a decision of choosing the option that seemingly has the minimal negative consequences.
Works cited
Postrel, Virginia. “The Art of Choosing. by Sheena Iyengar.” The New York Times Book Review. (2010): 16. Print.
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