Spontaneous Decision Making

The term decision making is utilized repeatedly in career development, behavioral studies, and management. Decision making has been defined in terms of the individual phenomena of selection to achieve a desired state of affairs or a process of choosing among alternatives. Essentially, it is a process of choosing among existing alternatives. Individual cognitive abilities assist people in making sound and quality decisions in any scenario. When those cognitive abilities are not fully utilized prior to making a decision, the decision-making style utilized is referred to as spontaneous decision making. The word spontaneous refers to quick, hasty, or impulsive acts. Therefore, spontaneous decision making is a process of instantaneous selection from available alternatives. It is characterized by making rapid, hasty, and impulsive decisions and is considered a feature of intuition. This decision-making style involves “thought chunking” in which concentration is focused on the information as a whole instead of analyzing the information in parts.

Most individuals use multiple decision-making styles and do not limit themselves to one style, depending on the available resources. There are many contingent factors associated with decision making such as social, political, cultural, and situational factors. One of the most important factors that determine the type of decision making is time. When someone has a significant amount of time and can utilize their cognitive abilities to make a sound selection among the available options, it is known as rational decision making. On the other hand, when someone has very little or no time to make a reasoned decision, it typically results in a spontaneous decision. For example, if a manager of a company is working on the third floor of a building and feels the jolt of what he or she perceives to be an earthquake, the manager instantaneously decides to leave building. This is an example of spontaneous decision making. Days after the earthquake, the manager may discusses the situation with architects and engineers to provide necessary safety measures to all employees in case of a subsequent earthquake in order to eliminate any chaos that may have ensued from the first earthquake. Making decisions after looking at all of the alternatives and having proper time to evaluate each available alternative is rational decision making.

The following sections look at many factors that can influence the outcome of spontaneous decision making. Those factors include the amount of information available at the time, the level of uncertainty, and the nature of the decision being made. The level of experience of the individual making the spontaneous decision is also of importance. Finally, the level at which the decision is being made is also an important variable, with the decision being affected by whether it is made at the individual, group, or organizational level.