Decision-Making, Politics, and "Self"

I am highly skeptical of decision-making in politics.

I do not believe that the bulk of people that run for a public position or vote for a bill only base their decisions on the rhetorical discourse of community values and altruism.

The people who claim to be shy but decide to run for a position in Congress, for example, are more psychologically complex than blunt community oriented messages conveyed. Policy-makers that firmly believe that their votes are always independent - always abide by their conscience - ignore the great influential power of unconsciousness. This is extremely dangerous.

Unconsciousness blinds politicians and constituents to the complex reasons for idiosyncratic reactions and actions. Totalitarian states are good examples.

Principles and ethics - as well as instinction - are elements that shape our “selves” and have to be taken into account so that we can understand what is behind “survival decisions” made by the ones who are elected and work under mandates and public supervision.

Roy Lee and Terence Mitchell in the paper “The Self in Decision Making and Decision Implementation” remember us that decision-making processes are more intuitive and subjective than linear and descriptive.

The methodology of “Subjective Expected Utility”, which is the subtraction of expected positive consequences for expected negative consequences resulting in the maximization of expected utility of a decision, does not fully explain politicians’ behavior.

The “Image Theory (IT)” that Lee and Mitchell propose are more comprehensive since this approach assumes that final decisions, even the ones backed by a large sum of scientific and statistical indicators, are usually made by gut-feelings.

All of us picture ourselves in specific time and place in the future before making sound decisions. People who aspire to take over public offices are not different.

Self, trajectory, projected, and action help us understand how public authorities contradict themselves when claiming that their legislative votes are purely self-conscious, independent, and always collective and future oriented.

Self is our set of principles. Trajectory, the agenda of goals. Projected, the timetable; and action, the roster of plans.

Let’s analyze the components of IT in the context of environmental issues.

Supposing that “preserving the environment for future generations” is the principle, that “deforestation, clean energy, and national parks” the trajectories, “ten years” the projected time, and “taxes and regulations” the actions.

Having these elements in play, how does the IT of this politician look like? How does this image end up affecting personal and collective unconscious decision-making process?

A tip to answer these difficult questions is asking why, what, and how.

Why does this politician have created this IT?

What do constituents think about that?

How does s/he benefit from decisions based on the image created?

Once we formulate these answers we take a step forward to become more cautious about political speeches, less easily convinced, and more analytical before altruistic rhetoric.

“Survival”, finally, seems to be a simple biological concept to grasp but in the context of “self” reveals how many contradictory motivations are behind every political decision.