Decision Making

The leader of a country typically is involved in that country’s military. For instance in America the president is also the commander-in-chief. Having this much power is a great responsibility for a person to hold. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee that the person in this position will be the best for it, as everyone has their own personalities and some people may be better suited for it than others. And as each personality is different, the decisions made will also be different from each person. The five-factor personality theory claims that there are 5 main factors that shape a person’s personality, all of which are biological. The different categories are extraversion, agreeableness,conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience, with conscientiousness being related to organization, thoroughness and the ability to make plans. This specific factor is probably where a person’s need for cognition would fall as well (Srivastava 2008). Obviously this difference in needs for cognition can have a large impact on the country. Imagine some sort of crisis that strikes; warranting a decision as to what to do. The leader could take extra time to think about the problem, but the extra time may cost lives. Or they could make a quick decision, but less thought could mean that the wrong decision is made perhaps costing more lives.
People who have a high need for cognition will typically have a sort of desire to tackle more difficult problems or to spend more time working out a problem. Those with a low need for cognition typically will gather the required information and then make a decision as quick as possible, rather than spending more time processing it. In one study, a group of students showed that people with high cognition will do more work in trying to find information and make a decision than those with low cognition. This can be translated into a more general application to all people with high or low needs for cognition (Hazenberg, Palenewen, Verplanken 1992).
The level of a person’s and more specifically a leader’s need for cognition, whether high or low, will be playing a very large role in his success as a leader. If the leader has a high need for cognition, then more time will pass before action is taken, but they will have considered many more angles and possibilities to the problem. Whereas if the leader has a low need for cognition, action will come quicker since they don’t have as much interest in thinking critically about it, but will lack the same insight as the decision made by the leader with a high need for cognition.
An example of a decision that came quickly due to a low need for cognition could be George W. Bush’s decision to invade Afghanistan following the attacks on September 11th. For instance, the decision to wage a war on terror came very quickly after the attacks. This proved to be a popular decision with the American people, with Bush’s approval rating reaching a record high 92 percent. It also proved to be a good decision to go after Osama Bin Laden, who was being protected by the Taliban government in Afghanistan. The American people were looking for some sort of retaliation directed towards the people involved with the attacks, so a quick decision in this instance seemed reasonable. The polls taken immediately afterwards showed that this instance of low cognition was popular with Bush’s approval rating being near ninety.
While that decision seemed to be a good one, the one following it, the invasion of Iraq as a continuation of the war on terror, did not seem to be a good decision. The decision to invade perhaps wasn’t considered as much as it should have been nor was the information at hand looked at closely enough. Some groups wanted to allow more time for more information to be gathered on what the Iraqi government was doing and to find the weapons of mass destruction, but the American government acted quickly. With the war in Iraq still a current issue, it could be viewed that this was not a good decision. The most recent polls taken show the approval rating has dropped to 28 percent, and while there are now a handful of other issues which have affected this, the war can arguably be the longest running issue.
Hazenberg, Pieter T., Palenewen, Grace R., Verplanken, Bas. (1992). “Need for
Cognition and External Information Search Effort”. Journal of Research in Personality, 26(2), Retrieved from PsycArticles database.
Page, Susan. (9/19/2008). Bush’s disapproval rating worst of any president in 70 years.
USA Today. Retrieved November 1st, 2008, from http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080422/a_pollbox22.art.htm
Srivastava, S. ([2008]). Measuring the Big Five Personality Factors. Retrieved [10/31] from http://www.uoregon.edu/~sanjay/bigfive.html.