Other Aspects of Misinforming

Approaches In Decision Making: The Role Of Emotions

The misinforming hazard and associated risks become visible when a receiver of information makes the decision to solve a problem and the result is not satisfactory, because of wrong use of obtained information. As seen in the previous chapters this hazard can be caused by many different objective reasons. This hazard can be a result of a subjective reason as well. In too many cases, decisions are made emotionally instead of rationally via exploring available information. Over-trust to source of information, because the receiver “likes” it, the fashion of the day, or “to follow others” are typical scenarios of emotionally led decision making. The result is that our houses are full of unneeded and unused goods.

The hazards cause risks of misinforming, based on the trust, can be classified in two general categories: ungrounded trust or giving unjustified credits to received information or sender, and ungrounded trust toward own competence when reality is de-facto lack of competence to understand, assess, verify, and use correctly the received information. The first one is usually based on emotional attitude toward the source. The opposite is also possible to refuse using “good information” because receiver doesn’t like the source. The second category is discussed in Chapter 2, as result of information asymmetry, in Part 2 in quantifying the value of information asymmetry. and in more detail the relationship between high confidence and low competence is presented in Section 4 in this Chapter.

In a nutshell the two categories of hazards leading to misinforming correspond to the two ways of decision-making behavior:

• 1.

  Trust corresponds to emotional based decision-making and emotional arguments in interpreting and adopting information. It corresponds to the image of the source, its credibility, and, in general, the environment of provided and received information. But also, to the personality of sender and receiver and their relations. Often, environmental factors in emotionally led decision making include fashion and “others” opinion or recommendations. Customers are purchasing obviously unneeded products simply because they are fashionable, or because “all neighbors” possess them.

• 2.

  Lack of competence in understanding correctly the information provided into the message, understanding limitation in data sources, the constraints of its validity, the used jargon, ways of delivery, verification potential, etc. These hazards correspond mostly to rational way of decision making, or at least to attempt to address rationally the problem, and deficits in competences to apply and explore well the recognized as needed critical assessment of received information. Usage of models to describe case and to assess relevance and validity of information may mislead the decision maker in trying to behave rationally.