The Psychology of "Big" Life Decisions
Consider the numerous decisions we face every day: what to eat for breakfast, what we shouldwear to work or a restaurant, who we should spend time with, and whether and what to watch onour screens after the day ends. Those are undoubtedly choices that could fall under the umbrellaof “little decisions.” We make them regularly, they normally don’t come with dire consequences,and we can learn from them and do something different the next day.
But there’s a host of other decisions that might fall under a different umbrella: They’re the onesthat we rarely make, but they carry major consequences with them. Life’s “big decisions,” forinstance, represent questions like whether to get married or break up, move or stay put, changecareers or carry on, or lean into a new identity or continue living in a safer but less authentic way.
While so much academic psychology and behavioral economics have studied small decisions,relatively little has touched on the big ones. And for good reason: Big decisions are complex, theyare messy, what rings true for one person may not for another, and they are exceptionally diffi cultto audit and assess after the fact.
