Three Roads to Commitment: A Trimodal Theory of Decision Making

Three Roads to Commitment: A Trimodal Theory of Decision Making 15
matching generates action (including plans, tactics, and values) in the absence of commitment at desired levels of
specificity and scope. Matching is fundamental, then, both because the other two modes are practices that must fit a
particular situation while continued matching is the default, and because matching is the only non-random source of
the raw material for their operation. The alternative in both cases is relatively unguided, i.e., “random,” search.
The priority of matching in these two senses does not mean that matching is or should be the initial “phase” in
every episode of decision making. First, that would diminish, not enhance matching’s role. The contribution of
matching is accumulated over lengthy stretches of cultural and individual history; it cannot be squeezed into a
“phase” of decision making. Choice and reassessment are the visible tip of an iceberg while matching is its far vaster
submerged body. Second, explicit decision making is always in media res: Decision makers may therefore find
themselves with a commitment they need to reassess, or with a set of options from which they need to select, in
environments that license the practice. Unless there is specific reason to reassess more fundamental assumptions
(e.g., about the situation, goals, or permitted practices), they need not be concerned with where the initial
commitments came from. While matching is “prior” in some respects, there is no a priori sequence of modes that
applies to every decision problem, either descriptively or prescriptively.
The Flexibility of Reassessment
Reassessment and matching are deeply complementary. While matching seeks to maximize the number of
truths, reassessment seeks to minimize the number of errors. Thus, matching seals commitments and reassessment
unlocks them. Matching, if taken by itself, assumes that personal and collective experiences embodied in rules are
sufficient for the problem at hand. Reassessment assumes the possibility of mistakes and stands ready to learn from
them. The rules and practices that underlie matching have largely evolved through the kind of trial and error
involved in reassessment – whether biological, cultural, organizational, or individual – rather than by the deliberate
comparison and calculation of benefits exemplified in choice (Smith, 2008). Matching and reassessment are both
necessary: one to generate commitments based on accumulated knowledge and the other to vett commitments and
stimulate improvements, which are then used in future matching.
The more connected a commitment is to other commitments, the more resistant it is to reassessment. Regardless
of its origins, an intention becomes more central through continued successful use in the background of decision
making, resulting in an expanding web of connections to the new goals, plans, and tactics that it has helped to
generate, as well as to other goals, plans, tactics, and beliefs that combined with it to do so. As centrality increases
through use, resistance to reassessment must also grow, due to the psychological, social or physical effort required