The what????

Okay – so it’s one of those really long words that most of us probably never want to see. But – it’s an important word and one we should become familiar with.

Why?

Yeah, I can see that look on your face. Well – because it may help us to understand why it is so difficult for some individuals to make decisions – maybe someone we know?

Now this is not just your every once in a while thing – where we need to make a decision and we take forever to do so. This is the norm for persons suffering from this problem.

Imagine this.

Say you are trying to set up a lunch date with a friend and you tell them when you’re available. You give them something on the weekend, something within a 2-week range, something on a weekday and you wait to hear which would be best for her/him.

Your friend takes out her phone and looks at her calendar. For nearly half an hour she mumbles reasons for and against each date, the possibility of the weather conditions, previous engagements, dates were too close to each other, endlessly comparing and contrasting the pros and cons for each date and the consequences of choosing any of them.

Would you think this was normal behavior? Perhaps you may just brush it off as a bit “quirky” or “weird.” Or perhaps you just make a mental note NEVER to invite this friend out ever again!

Well – before you get your britches all in a tangle; hear me out.

Remember that long word I mentioned at the very beginning of this blog?
Well – that thing has a very specific function, and damage to it can cause some serious problems to the decision-making process. You see – neuroscientists have discovered that damage to this area causes a disconnect between what you know – and what you do. Those suffering from this damage are highly rational and do not get the “emotional triggers”(prickling of the palms, weird feeling in the gut, just the feeling of something not being right) that most people get. These emotional cues help us to actually make the decision because somehow we “just have the feeling” that this is right – or this is wrong. Individuals with damage to the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex (which sits just behind the nose) do not experience these feelings. So although they KNOW the facts; they find it difficult to MAKE a decision using those facts.

It’s similar to a drug addiction where addicts can articulate very well the consequences of their behavior – but fail to act on doing anything to improve their behavior.

So the next time you experience this type of behavior from someone you interact with; give them the benefit of the doubt that perhaps – just perhaps, they may not be able to help themselves.