[MattGrommes]

In watching my kids grow up I'm always struck by my inability to figure out why they did certain things. They obviously had reasons but when questioned those reasons were regularly things I would have never thought of. I always felt it was a bit like anthropomorphizing animals to make deductions about their behavior. You might think you have a good hypothesis but it's very difficult to know that you're working with the same variables they are.

[edanm]

The more I read about psychology/rationality, the more I realize that what you're saying is also true about ourselves. We regularly do things that don't make sense, and have only vague, and often wrong, ideas about why we did what we did. Except that our brain is amazingly good at self-delusion, making us believe that there were reasons behind it all.

[Evbn]

There are almost always reason, but not always conscious rationality. Emotions in the limbic system are sort of like the analog machines of old, before digital logic computers, as a weak analogy.

What is often ignored is that rational decision making depends on priorities and estimations of prior probability, and these vary wildly based on circumstance.

[JoeAltmaier]

I'd like to agree; but the conclusion "Irrationality is observed; sometimes I find out its based on emotion: All irrationality is based on emotion" is not warrented. Its possible people make bad decisions because they're bad-decision-makers. Or maybe something else, I don't know.

[mathattack]

I hear you. There's always a method to the madness, but sometimes it's hard to figure out in advance.