Psychology Semester Project Podcast Audio

The speaker reflects on the influence of various factors, such as biology, social environment, culture, and psychology, on decision-making. They discuss how these influences can affect rationality and judgment, and give examples of how mental illnesses, upbringing, and relationships can impact decision-making. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding and being aware of these influences, as well as filtering and incorporating them into one's own decision-making process. They also mention the issue of indecisiveness and how it can be rooted in previous and current influences. Ultimately, the speaker encourages staying open to both negative and positive influences in order to make informed decisions. Should I get out of bed today? That was my first thought this morning. Do I meet with my friends to work on this project, or do I just sleep in for the day and worry about it later? Those were my thoughts, among many others. Decisions are made constantly, some without us realizing we have made them, and that our actions have led to the following events. But what about thinking about the reason that lingers in our factoring? Rationalizing based on what we have adapted into our psyche, making decisions based on our experience, environment, and who we are mentally and physically from these factors and situations. That is where my focus is for the session. What's up, my fellow psychos? No, I'm just kidding. Hi, my name is Jason Kukulon, psych major undergraduate student discussing a topic that falls under theme C, biopsychosocial and cultural influences. I'm talking about decision making and how much these biopsychosocial and cultural factors can or will influence our decision making. I believe all these things can be cultivated and can all have influence on our decision making, but it's about looking at how much one can be affected by our external and internal variables is what is surprising. Can you go into how these factors can influence in decision making, big or small? Biological factors can definitely affect our rationality and logical judgment in making decisions. Example being our logic affected since our moment of birth, considering some illnesses that are mental can be hereditary. Social is pretty easy to sum up because it is definitely a case of the outside affecting what happens on the inside. Cultural factors are, for me, a fun one. I wish I could do a whole episode about just this, which discusses things like generational trauma, which has definitely been more recognized in the media as of late. Psychology is another one from the idea of psychological influences in the sense of making any choice. Decisions are made by factors such as our mental state, showing that these issues can affect decisions such as getting out of bed, like I talked about in the beginning, much more difficult for someone with major depressive disorder to conclude with. So how heavy can any of these influences be? I believe it's really easy to be influenced by someone or by influences within without even realizing it. That's why example models like parenting books are so effective because they're the social model of what you should do and what you should not do. Even most researchers and experts are well aware of models and it's perfect model when it comes to psychology and other even other fields related to psychology like sociology. Some influences are obvious or at least very obvious to our eyes like our parents when they raise us in certain aspects that can be good or bad. Even friends after what I like to call the honeymoon phase, which I think is a part of some less than stellar friendships, sometimes we see the other person being not so great or finally seeing their true character behind their base impression, maybe making our decision easy in living and leaving or maybe we take it as difficult due to us feeling bad for breaking off a relationship but it depends on the person. It's important that you understand how your decisions judgment and rationality is being influenced and from where. However, if it's good or at least to our social standards and you have been influenced by those who are instilling good values, then it's not worry. However, if you are being distracted by some issues coming to conclusions or having irritable solutions to important or critical situations, then that does need some fixing and changes need to be made. A big example is something that we haven't talked about yet, which is indecisiveness and even that's rooted in our previous and current influences. Thanks to Psych Central and their article on why am I so indecisive? 10 methods that can help you make decisions. They even discuss some factors that could lead to the issue of being indecisive. They list reasons that consist of all types of factors I've talked about. It can be from mental illnesses that are hereditary. It can come from social acceptance and not craving for it. It can come from fear of failure to family community or because you categorize everything as right or wrong in the perfectionist mentality. Where are you going with this? I'm saying that this is it is up to us ourselves to filter what we can let influence us or how we take those influences at least and how we can make it a part of us because we are a culmination of many human interactions both good and bad. I know this and it can be hard to do that at times but it's important to keep your eyes open to the darkness but keep them open to the light that many people have and that await us.