When is a question: Decisive/ Impulsive/ Indecisive?

[Rosexøxø]

What is the line between: when a decision is decisive, and when it is impulsive?

context:

So a guest and I were going for lunch. Fast food. Guest had two coupons for two types of meal deals. Guest went on and asked me ‘which I preferred.’

my response:

- do they both come with drinks?

*(after)*

- you can choose. (As I didn’t mind either choice, really; I knew they were the one spending; I wouldn’t want to choose the option that was smaller- by chance- (guest is a big person), and I didn’t want the option that would cost guest more money.

**** worth mentioning: guest was also a bit “hangry,” at the time.

So it goes, guest didn’t like my suggestion of leaving “the luxury of choice” up to them, so guest said a comment of: “come on- be decisive and assertive. Pick one.”

I took offense- and retorted, “I’m. Decisive.” (With nerve). Proceeded and picked one.

Then I thought. Just because I was taking time to answer, guest thought I was being “indecisive.” If I chose one in a faster amount of time, I felt it was being too Impulsive.

- Of course, I like to take SOME time to ensure the best option and choice is made, but when does a decision become one that is IMPULSIVE? When does it become INDECISIVE? And when is it a good, old fashioned, DECISION?

And of course this can be broken down possibly and ideally, with a dictionary, but I’m curious what others have to say about these three.

• impulse
• indecisiveness/ indecision
• decisiveness/ decision

(Source: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco webpage)

Updates

3 mo

Update: I had this question in my mind and so it seeped through in the title. Apologies, and the question title should read as:

When is a choice: Decisive/ Impulsive/ Indecisive

I believe we can also wrongly assume someone as being indecisive or impulsive, when in reality they may come to conclusions rather fast. (Fast mental processing), and on the other side, someone who would appear indecisive, is just merely considering a lot of components before deciding.

[Zestyassmf1997]

Decisive has more basis in rationality. A decisive decision is made quickly and followed through based on information at hand an experience. An impulse decision is one that’s just made quickly based on what you want immediately.

[Rosexøxø]

I enjoy this perspective greatly!

And what could you say for indecisive? Essentially (going off of your response to decisive) indecisive is when someone doesn’t “follow through” on a choice matter? If so I could mention this to “guest” and tell them I’m decisive because I always follow through 😁. Indecisive is never even making a choice, right?

[Zestyassmf1997]

Yeah. Indecisive people don’t make a decision.

[Rosexøxø]

Thanks a bunch for this input. I love it when things make sense. I will definitely be able to use this is the long run. 💯

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Something that might be worth mentioning as well is that being impulsive doesn't always mean that the person is acting in haste, at least from the time they developed the impulse and acted on it. For example, a smoker trying to quit cigarettes and resisting his cravings might still, after some time, cave in and impulsively reach for a cigarette. It just means the decision was made with little thoughts to the actual consequences.

So in your case selecting from the menu, just because you made a decision faster doesn't necessarily mean that it's impulsive if you at least put some thought into the possible consequences. Decisive people make decisions fairly swiftly. Indecisive people are generally ones who put way too much thought about the consequences of each possible decision and take ages to arrive at a decision. They tend to overthink the decision being way too picky.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

So when someone accuses you of being indecisive, it means they think you're taking too long and thinking too much to make a decision. They want you to be more decisive (think faster, be less picky), not necessarily impulsive.

[Rosexøxø]

@GuyAnswersGirls123 too bad you couldn’t have made this reply a response then I could’ve selected it for mho. Definitely an eye opener 👍

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

The existing answer was already excellent; I just wanted to add that footnote to the discussion.

Another note is that it's going to be relative to the critical nature of the decision and the time available as to whether others perceive a person to be decisive or indecisive.

For example, a business leader making a critical decision that will have deep consequences on her business but plenty of time to decide (no emergency situation) probably won't be considered indecisive by anyone if she spends days or even weeks deliberating over the decision and consulting with her team to try to arrive at the best possible decision. So much is at stake here and there's no rush.

On the flip side, if someone is trying to choose between vanilla ice cream and chocolate ice cream at an ice cream shop with a massive line of impatient people behind him, he's quickly going to be considered indecisive by many if he doesn't act more swiftly and decisively. After all, if he's deliberating over this, he would have to like both vanilla and chocolate almost equally as well, and it's not the end of the world if he just picks one quickly.

So it's always very contextual with respect to the importance of the decision and the time available whether someone is considered decisive or indecisive.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

People who are considered indecisive in trivial contexts (like ice cream flavor) are often associated as being spoiled and picky, like the tale of Goldilocks with her trying to find beds, chairs, and bowls of porridge that are "just right" when it's not such an important decision.

Decisive people make a strong distinction between when a situation calls for a decision that only needs to be "good enough" vs. situations in which it's critical to try to arrive at the best possible decision. They're also critically aware of the practical time available, like if the building catches on fire with people panicking, then swiftly deciding that everyone moves towards the exit, even if it's not the best possible route, might be better than spending too much time deliberating over the best possible route when everyone is growing in panic and smoke is starting to fill their lungs.

So decisive thinkers are able to adapt the speed of their decision-making process based on the important of the decision and time available. The most indecisive thinkers tend to be unable to adapt in this way, always treating even the most trivial of decisions, and/or ones that afford little practical time to choose, as though their fate of the world rests on it.