Why bottom up processing makes decision making harder

OK, so why do so many autistic people struggle with decision-making and what does this have to do with bottom-up processing?

For those who missed it, bottom-up processing is basically a person needing lots of details and proper context when taking in new information so they know what to do with it. 

And I think there's a logical connection between this and decision making. 

Because it makes sense that this type of processing would slow down decision making quite a bit. 

But there's actually more to it than that, which a study from 2022 did a great job of uncovering. 

The study (link below) found that autistic people tend to collect and analyze all relevant information in an exhaustive decision-making process. 

This is bottom-up processing.

But the study also explained why the autistic participants did this. 

It was to identify the best possible outcome for the situation. Which I think is an extremely important piece of all of this.

And (unsurprisingly to most autistic people 😆)... this ultimately led to better outcomes.

But... interestingly, the autistic participants were less satisfied with the outcomes of their decisions, even though they were objectively better. 

And I think this partially explains why autistic people often get anxiety when making decisions. 

Because if we know from experience that we are often still uncertain about our choices, even if the outcomes were good, of course we'll want to avoid having to make any. 😅 

But there's more...

The study also explained that the autistic participants who approached decision-making in this way mainly did it because they feared failure. 

Which, I think also significantly contributes to autistic people getting anxiety when making decisions.

It's basically a double whammy, pattern recognition issue. 

We know from past experience that even when we get it right, we're not necessarily satisfied... 

And we also know from past experience that when we get it wrong, well... that's just unacceptable (because many of us are perfectionists too 😅 ).

So... we avoid having to make decisions in the first place.

I think this explains why I can't take action on 95% of my email inbox. 

This includes things that are literally inconsequential... and things that could potentially cost me in significant ways.

Regardless, the decision paralysis is real. 😬😅

Source for reference...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1750946722000228