As Decisões no Cérebro Humano - 2 "Sistemas" para tomarmos decisões - Intuição e Análise

Em 1996, Steven A. Sloman publicou um artigo - The empirical case for two systems of reasoning (Psychological Bulletin 1996) - em que, de forma intuitiva , associou diversos contributos e argumentou em favor de uma teoria de tomada de decisão em que dois tipos de raciocínio respondem (por vezes de maneira diferente) aos estímulos criados por uma decisão, e interagem, guiando as nossas decisões...

Compreender a relação entre estes dois "sistemas" tem sido crucial no desenvolvimento de novos modelos de tomada de decisão que consigam explicar, por exemplo, questões como arrependimento e auto-controlo (por exemplo, porquê que, demasiadas vezes, nos comportamos de forma que pode atentar contra os nossos objectivos longo prazo - apenas por um momento de prazer, ou utilidade).

Reproduzo, abaixo, um excerto do artigo "The Marketplace of Perceptions", onde Prof. de Economia David Laibson, da Universidade de Harvard, procura explicar este processo a um nível neurológico:

Economists specialize in taking really complex things and boiling them down to simple principles,” says David Laibson. “So, rather than treat the brain as billions of neurons, or trillions of neurotransmitters, we want to ask, what is the right level of analysis? It turns out that the brain has two key subsystems. One, the limbic and paralimbic system, rules the intuitive and affective parts of our psyches. It’s shared by all mammals and seems to do a lot of emotional cognition—how we feel emotionally, how we respond to other humans, or to being treated unfairly. This system seems to function unconsciously; we don’t have access to it and maybe can’t even control it. It’s experiential and rapid in function.

“Contrast that with the analytic system, centered in the frontal and parietal cortexes,” Laibson continues. “It controls a lot of the thought processes we learn to do: calculated, conscious, future-oriented thinking. It’s not based on past experience; you could have the rules of a brand-new game explained and the analytic system would be able to figure out how to play.”

Brain researchers have shown that an interaction of the limbic and analytic systems governs human decision-making. The limbic system seems to radically discount the future. While the analytic system’s role remains constant from the present moment onward, the limbic system assumes overriding importance in the present moment, but rapidly recedes as rewards move into the future and the emotional brain reduces its activation. This explains impulsiveness: the slice of pizza that’s available right now trumps the dietary plan that the analytic brain has formulated. Seizing available rewards now might be a response pattern with evolutionary advantages, as future benefits are always uncertain.