Environment Issues and How It Affect an Individual’s Decisions

Environments Affect Decision Making

Florida A& M University

ISS-5939

Environments Affect Decision Making 2

Environment Issues and How It Can Affect Individual’s Decisions

Decision making and how it affects our overall well being is a distinctive approach on

how we perceive life. Making a decision can be a simple task; however there are several things

that prompt us to make decisions and how to make them. There are several factors that can affect

the decisions that we make. In particular environmental issues can shape how choices are made

whether a negative or positive outcome. Some important environmental issues that affect

decision making are poverty, incarceration, health care, interlocking oppression, and

government.

Poverty is an environmental issue that can impact a person’s decision making. In the

United States there is staggering number of people living in poverty. In 2012, 47 million people

or 15% of Americans were living in poverty. These people are considered as the working poor,

less fortunate, and those of low wealth. The measurement of poverty is based on incomes or

consumption levels, and people are considered poor if their consumption income levels fall

below the ‘poverty line’, which is the minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. Living in

poverty can be very stressful and cause other issues such as mental illness, premature pregnancy,

and adolescent delinquency. These issues alone can have an emotional impact on an individual’s

judgments. Time pressure, information overload, and cognitive constraints (e.g. limited

capabilities for attention, computation, and memory) often lead decision makers to edit and

analyze complex decision making and base their decisions on a subset of the available

information (Chou & Halevy, 2014). A lack of inadequate resources can also affect the

decisions people make. Research has shown that a lack of resources in communities such as

libraries, parks, and enrichment programs cause people to make poor decision due to the

inadequate information provided.

Environments Affect Decision Making 3

Teens are now more likely to have sex prematurely which can lead to teen pregnancy

because they don’t have enrichment activities to keep them occupied afterschool. This in turn

creates more stress on the entire family because there is a greater chance the teen won’t graduate

from high school due to the responsibility of parenthood. It also creates a developmental trap

because the cycle of poverty is more likely to continue.

Male teens that do not have access to the proper resources tend to get in trouble with the

law. There seems to be a lack of motivational and life skills resources available to teens and

adults in impoverished areas. Teens in impoverished areas, especially males are not likely to

have a positive male role model to seek for guidance. When you have a lack of positive

reinforcement and an environment that is full of negativity; it becomes hard for easily influenced

teens to follow what is right. In 1980, one in 10 black high school dropouts were incarcerated by

2008 totaling 37% of black males. Researchers found that fewer than 30% of black male high

school dropouts are currently employed and barely providing for their families. When high

school dropouts come out of prison and try to find steady work, they hit dead ends in terms of

earnings.

Limited access to education in impoverished communities affects decision making as

well. People that live in poverty are less likely to graduate from high school or even attend

college. Most people that live in poverty did not complete education higher than a middle school

which limits them from higher paying jobs to provide for their families. The lack of education

creates a mentality of not knowing how to go about handling difficult situations like how to

budget so that bills are not behind which can become a frustrating problem. Individuals who

performed better on a competence test were less likely to report negative life events indicative of

poor decision making (Bruin, Fischhoff,& Parker, 2007).

Environments Affect Decision Making 4

Lack of education creates vulnerability like predatory lending. This is seen way to often

when a person borrows money from a pay day lending agency because she has an emergency.

That loan has to be paid back the next time she gets paid which creates a cycle of consistent

borrowing every pay period. The person never gets out of the pay day loan rut. The person is

simply making a decision to keep bills paid and utilizing the resources in her environment.

Interlocking oppression is another situation that molds the way decisions are made.

Interlocking oppression or intersecting oppression is normally experienced by women. It’s a

type of discriminatory action normally initiated by gender and minorities. Interlocking

oppression devastates those living in poverty. There is a history of interlocking oppression for

minorities that dwell in impoverished communities. Interlocking oppression is sometimes a

psychological battle; the brain has to hold so much information and sometimes it could cause a