How can people differentiate between their conscious decisions and others making decisions for them? In Dan Ariely's Tedtalk Are we in control of our own decisions? addresses some thought provoking studies from organ donations in Europe to The Economist subscriptions. Ariely explains that if people are confronted with a difficult decision, they would rather have that decision made by someone else.
Thinking deeper, I believe people make decisions based on tradition or culture that makes them comfortable in a situation. People would rather choose a familiar hell over and unfamiliar heaven. If we were given a choice to take a risk and be authentic, most may back down, discouraged from a possible failure. Due to our built in defense mechanism, choosing the path of comfort may actually be a harder journey then taking a risk. From what we know about tragedies, characters oftentimes have a dramatic flaw within them. For the common man, I would imagine fearing the unknown and not venturing out is a root of tragedy.
So do we even make decisions ourselves? From my experience, sort of. This is a gray area for everyone. If we are faced with a difficult decision, a decision against the masses it would be harder to make that decision than conforming to society. But making a decision with a group and having support from others make the burden of decision making easier. However, most of the decision that Ariely discussed were not life changing or significant but it definitely provided more insight on the philosophy of humans.
Thinking deeper, I believe people make decisions based on tradition or culture that makes them comfortable in a situation. People would rather choose a familiar hell over and unfamiliar heaven. If we were given a choice to take a risk and be authentic, most may back down, discouraged from a possible failure. Due to our built in defense mechanism, choosing the path of comfort may actually be a harder journey then taking a risk. From what we know about tragedies, characters oftentimes have a dramatic flaw within them. For the common man, I would imagine fearing the unknown and not venturing out is a root of tragedy.
So do we even make decisions ourselves? From my experience, sort of. This is a gray area for everyone. If we are faced with a difficult decision, a decision against the masses it would be harder to make that decision than conforming to society. But making a decision with a group and having support from others make the burden of decision making easier. However, most of the decision that Ariely discussed were not life changing or significant but it definitely provided more insight on the philosophy of humans.