How We Decide

In How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer says that since Plato, we have thought of the brain as consisting of two competing parts, the rational and the emotional.  The emotional was viewed as an untrustworthy element often interfering with rational decisions.  That theory has been recently challenged. Lehrer describes an event, surprising at the time.

In 1982, a patient named Elliot walked into the office of neurologist Antonio Damasio.  A few months earlier, a small tumor had been cut out of Elliot’s cortex near the frontal lobe of his brain.  Before the surgery, Elliot had been a model father and husband…But the operation changed everything.  Although Elliot’s IQ had stayed the same—he still tested in the 97th percentile—he now exhibited one psychological flaw: he was incapable of making a decision.

Elliot would take several hours sometimes to make a routine decision.  His doctor noticed, when he talked about his life, “I never saw a tinge of emotion in my many hours of conversation with him: no sadness, no impatience, no frustration.”  Lehrer comments on this.

This was a completely unexpected discovery.  At the time, neuroscience assumed that human emotions were irrational.   A person without any emotions—in other words, someone like Elliot—should therefore make better decisions.  His cognition should be uncorrupted.

What, then, had happened to Elliot?...Elliot’s pathology suggested that emotions are a crucial part of the decision-making process.  When we are cut off from our feelings, the most banal decisions became impossible.  A brain that can’t feel can’t make up its mind.

We all know from experience that emotions don’t always lead us to good decisions, and Lehrer devotes part of his book to that issue.  But I was surprised to find emotions being so crucial to our ability to decide.  

Then, I went online to find a picture to go with this article and discovered that Lehrer fabricated some of the quotations in his interviews.  The book has a 14 page bibliography, but  Lehrer made up some of his quotations.  He made some bad decisions.  I'm glad I read the book, but I'm disappointed Lehrer made bad choices. The book publisher will no longer sell the book.