BazermanMoore

88 Chapter 5: Motivational and Emotional Influences on Decision Making
Such contradictions between decisions made at different time periods can be
traced to the vividness of present concerns. Obviously, we care most about what is happening
to us in the present moment, since that is what we are actually experiencing. If
you’re craving Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, you want it now, not later, and certainly not in a
couple of days. Notably, our differing temporal preferences are rooted in our biology.
When we consider an immediate reward, the emotional centers in our brains are activated.
When we consider a delayed reward, it is the more rational and reflective prefrontal
cortex that is most active (McClure, Laibson, Loewenstein, & Cohen, 2004).
Reconciling Internal Conflicts
The research on internal inconsistency raises important questions. For our own longterm
health and safety, should we try to allow the ‘‘should’’ self to completely control
our decisions? Or does the ‘‘want’’ self have something valuable to add to improve the
decisions of the ‘‘should’’ self? We offer advice on this issue from three areas: economics,
Raiffa’s decision-analysis perspective (see Chapter 1), and a negotiation framework
(developed further in Chapter 9).
Advice from Economists Economists such as Schelling (1984) and Thaler
(1980) argue that the key to resolving our internal conflicts is to create a means of controlling
the destructive impulses of the short-term decision maker. Because the
‘‘should’’ self is the planner, it can develop advance schemes to corral, co-opt, or control
the ‘‘want’’ self. Thaler and Shefrin (1981) compare the multiple-selves problem to the
agency problem faced by the owner of a firm who employs a clever but self-interested
manager. The owner’s challenge is to structure the manager’s job in a way that makes
the manager want to act in the owner’s best interest. In this metaphor, the firm’s owner
is the ‘‘should’’ self, planning to control the impulses of the manager’s ‘‘want’’ self.
Specifically, the ‘‘should’’ self could search for ways to bring the interests of the two
selves into alignment. For the dieter, this might mean finding enjoyable forms of physical
exercise and making sure that healthful food is available when the ‘‘want’’ self gets hungry.
The ‘‘should’’ self might also anticipate situations in which passion tends to overcome
reason and avoid those situations entirely, as Mark Merrill tried to do when he put his
name on Indiana’s gambling self-exclusion list. Some casinos offer their own selfexclusion
lists for problem gamblers, but casino managers have proven quite accommodating
to gamblers who change their minds and take themselves off the list (Holt, 2006).
For precisely this reason, inflexible precommitment can increase the effectiveness
of such rules. For example, alcoholics can take a drug called Antabuse, which produces
violent nausea if they subsequently consume alcohol. Similarly, paternalistic outside
parties (such as parents, an employer, or the government) sometimes try to help people
avoid succumbing to the ‘‘want’’ self. Many states try to protect consumers from shortterm
impulses by legislating revocability periods for high-priced items (e.g., condominium
share purchases).
Advice from Decision Theorists The multiple-selves problem implies that, in
the words of Walt Whitman (1855/2001), we each ‘‘contain multitudes.’’ Acknowledging
this complexity represents a challenge for decision analysts, who usually assume