The Idea of Autonomy in Decision-Making

Discussion
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The idea of autonomy in decision-making is often controversial. Many people may feel that they independently make decisions. The truth is that such people are influenced by external factors and cues in reaching specific decisions. This phenomenon is what is defined as a cognitive shortcut. Cognitive shortcuts represent automatic, unconscious, or unconditioned thought patterns that persons use to make decision-making more efficient, especially when responding to stressful and sophisticated time-limited decision-making. Dan Ariely, while demonstrating the idea of cognitive shortcuts, talked about an example of organ donation to demonstrate how people have tendencies to a default bias (TEdtalk). The wording of the instruction often impacts the choice people make. When requiring organ donations, the instructions should be designed in a way that leads to cognitive default.
The idea that we “nudge” people to make healthier choices presents a pot...