Hi Sunni,

In an email to another friend, I've just answered a similar Q to the one you posed, regarding adults behaving like children.

Firslty, to be specific, when I say childlike, I refer to the propensity to delegate responsiblilty for decision making (DM) in certain situations.

When it comes to the issue of taking responsibility for decision making, the defining criteria is whether the available options are perceived as 'good/favourable' or 'bad/unfavourable'.

So, for eg, if both options are good (eg, which nice new car or plasma screen will I choose), individuals are likely to assume more responsibility + look for information to aid the DM (decision making) process.

The rationalle is that, as they cannot 'go wrong' in the scenario, they wish to take full credit for the outcome of that DM (i.e., the shiny new car/ big plasma).

But, if the available options are adverse, individuals are more likely to delegate DM to another party.

Eg; where there is a medical decision to make, where both options are unpleasant (eg. chemo/ radiotherapy V surgery), individuals are likely to avoid info gathering, and delegate the decision to a recognised 'medical authority'.

The rationalle here is that either way, the outcome will not be nice, so the individual does not want to take blame for a bad decision.

What is the point of all this?

If societal issues are framed as 'bad/bad', such as 'environment stuffed in 20yrs if we don't change V change = loss of jobs and standard of living we're accustomed to, then most individuals will prefer not to seek info, and instead (like children), delegate DM to 'recognised authorities'. This I've seen time and time again...(and it favours those who frame the decisions in those ways).

You can insert your own pair of 'negative' scenarios into the above - the outcome is usually the same.