Stress affects learning and decision making

Miranda Pickering

            Have you ever heard any one tell you, “you learn something knew everyday”, or “you’ll never stop learning”? Well that’s the truth! This applies not only to our everyday personal life but also to our jobs too. Decision making and learning are very important aspects in any business. To learn is to obtain knowledge or skills through practice or study. The more you try and learn about something such as in your work place the greater affect it will have on your decision making in certain situations. Decision making is the cognitive process of reaching a specific decision. This can be extremely crucial in some aspects of the job. There are two types of knowledge; you have explicit where knowledge is communicated to everyone and tacit where it’s learning via experience. Ask discussed in class there are different methods of learning; reinforcement, observation, and goal orientation. The most common type of reinforcement is positive. When an employee does a task well, you reward them with a bonus or some sort of incentive. The employee will learn that when they do the desired task they are rewarded, this would also be considered tacit knowledge.

            As students in college we are learning the skills and gaining the knowledge to better direct our future. By gaining the experience and knowledge the College has to offer us, it helps guide us in the decision making about our future. The more we know about the jobs we look forward to having after we graduate the more prepared we will be. The same thing applies to having a job. In particular for me everyday on my job is a new learning experience. There are going to be certain situations at work you will come across that have never happened before, take that information in and learn from it. The actions and outcomes will help guide your decisions in the future when coming across the same situation.

            In and interesting article from Time Magazine, it says that acute stress can have a great affect on the decision making process. In the article is stated that when placed under stressful situations more people were able to retain the information when rewarded rather than punished. Stress also affects the decision making process in men and women differently. The study done by Time Magazine stated that under stressful situations men were more likely over women to make risky decisions and push the envelope. Women take there time with making decision when they are in stressful situations. (Szalavitz, 2012) When making decisions it is important to remember that the situation that you are in can have a great affect in the decisions that you make. I’ve seen a lot people right out of High School under pressure to determine their future right away, go to College and just pick a random degree because they know they need to go to College but they have no idea what they want to do with their future. They spend four years getting a degree they could care less about, all because they were in a situation where they were pressured into making a decision.

            Research has shown that as we grow and mature that aids in helping us make decisions. As we grow up we find different needs we need to meet, which in turn changes the decisions we make in order to reach those goals. For example while most students as freshman and sophomores in College are mainly focused just on the classes and maybe their job if they have one. While the juniors and seniors are focused on internships, graduation, and the decisions on jobs after college. Decision making also depends on the point of our life or level of our career we are in. The learning process and decision making process can also be a little bias because we want to learn and make decisions that we can benefit from, or that our company can benefit from (Tugend, 2013).

            Learning and decision making are very important aspects when it comes to the work place. One day some of us will become entrepreneurs, managers, or business owners. In these roles the decisions we make are not only affecting us but our company and the employees. “Being a leader in business is somewhat like being a commander on a battlefield—things are happening quickly, and many of them are outside your control (Feuer, 2011)”, you will learn from theses situations and from that draw better decisions. Everything you come across in life and the work place you learn from. In the work place employees that achieve more knowledge have higher levels of task performance compared to the employees that have no knowledge. Whether the outcome affects you in a positive or negative way, it will lead you to the decisions you make in the future.

Feuer, M. (2011, September 12). Sustainability: Decision making. Retrieved from http://www.bus-ex.com/article/sustainability-decision-making

Szalavitz, M. (2012, March 5). Decision-making under stress: The brain remembers rewards, forgets punishment. Retrieved from http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/05/decision-making-under-stress-the-brain-remembers-rewards-forgets-punishments/

TUGEND, A. (2013, Jan. 25). When you don’t do what you meant to, and don’t know why. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/your-money/tips-for-making-decisions-and-sticking-to-them.html