Lesson 6: Memory, Thinking, and Decision-Making
Transcript
Welcome back to The Introduction to Psychology Series. I’m RJ Starr.
We’ve talked about how we learn—how patterns are formed, reinforced, and sometimes passed on just by watching. But today’s lesson goes deeper into what happens after we’ve learned something. How we store it. How we recall it. How we forget. And how we use those pieces of stored information to make sense of the world.
We’re talking about memory, thinking, and decision-making. Three things that feel like they’re under our control—until they’re not.
Let’s start with memory. Because for most people, memory feels like a mental filing cabinet. You experience something, you store it, and later, you retrieve it. But that’s not how memory works.
Memory is not a recording. It’s a reconstruction. Every time you remember something, your brain is putting the pieces back together. And every time it does that, the pieces are influenced by your current state, your emotions, your beliefs, and sometimes your imagination.
Psychologists break memory into three basic stages: encoding, storage, and retrieval.
Encoding is the process of taking in information. It happens when you pay attention to something, make sense of it, and connect it to what you already know. The more deeply you process information, the more likely you are to remember it later. So if you read something once while distracted, it probably won’t stick. But if you read it while focused, visualize it, and relate it to something personal—it has a much better chance.
Then comes storage. That’s how the information is held over time. Short-term memory, sometimes called working memory, holds a small amount of information for a short period—maybe 15 to 30 seconds. Think of trying to remember a phone number long enough to write it down. It’s fleeting, and it’s limited.
Long-term memory is where things stay more permanently. But even long-term memory isn’t perfect. Some memories fade. Others become distorted. And what we store is shaped by attention and emotion. Emotional events—especially intense ones—are more likely to be remembered. But even those can become exaggerated or confused over time.
Finally, there’s retrieval—the act of bringing a memory back into conscious awareness. Retrieval can be triggered by cues—a smell, a song, a word, a setting. But it’s also highly vulnerable to error. Sometimes we retrieve the wrong memory. Sometimes we blend two memories together. And sometimes we fill in the gaps with things that feel right, even if they never happened.
This brings us to one of the most important insights in modern psychology: memory is fallible. Researcher Elizabeth Loftus has done decades of work on memory distortion and false memories. In one of her most famous studies, participants watched a video of a car accident. Some were asked how fast the cars were going when they “hit” each other. Others were asked how fast they were going when they “smashed.” That one word—smashed—led people to report higher speeds and even remember seeing broken glass, which wasn’t there.
The implication is huge. Our memories are shaped by suggestion. By wording. By context. And this matters—not just in legal settings, but in how we understand ourselves. Because your memory is the story you tell about your life. And if that story is altered—intentionally or not—it affects how you see yourself, and how you make decisions going forward.
Let’s talk about thinking now—because memory is only useful if we can apply it.
Cognitive psychologists study how we think. How we solve problems. How we make judgments. And how we reason through complexity.
One of the core ideas here is that we use mental shortcuts called heuristics. These are rules of thumb—ways of thinking that help us make decisions quickly. They’re useful. They save energy. But they can also lead us to biased or irrational conclusions.
For example, there’s the availability heuristic. This is when we judge how likely something is based on how easily we can bring it to mind. If you’ve just heard about three plane crashes, you might feel like air travel is more dangerous than it actually is—because those events are more available in your memory. Even if flying is statistically safer than driving, your brain says, I can picture the plane crash, so it must be more likely.
Then there’s the representativeness heuristic. This happens when we judge how typical something seems, and ignore actual probability. If someone is shy, loves books, and wears glasses, we might assume they’re more likely to be a librarian than a salesperson—even if there are way more salespeople in the world. Our brain goes with the stereotype, not the math.
There’s also confirmation bias—the tendency to look for information that confirms what we already believe, and to ignore or downplay information that challenges us. This one is everywhere. In politics. In relationships. In how we explain our own failures or other people’s behavior. We’re not as objective as we think. Once we believe something, our brain starts filtering reality through that belief.
These biases don’t make us bad people. They make us human. But being aware of them can help us slow down. Ask better questions. And recognize when we’re falling into a pattern that doesn’t serve us.
Let’s talk about decision-making. Because at some point, all of this—memory, attention, emotion, bias—funnels into a moment where we have to choose something. And our choices aren’t always rational.
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize for showing that humans have two systems of thinking. System 1 is fast, intuitive, emotional. It’s great for quick decisions and everyday tasks. But it’s prone to error. System 2 is slower, more deliberate, more logical. It takes effort. It’s what you use when doing taxes, solving a complex problem, or trying to see things from another perspective.
Most of us operate in System 1 by default. That’s efficient. But when the stakes are high, or when we notice our emotions taking over, it helps to pause. To shift into System 2. To check the story we’re telling ourselves, and ask if it holds up.
Sometimes we decide too quickly. Other times we get stuck in overthinking. Analysis paralysis. We rehearse every possible outcome, trying to control what can’t be controlled. We delay action, hoping for certainty that never comes.
But psychology teaches us that decision-making isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being intentional. Recognizing that no choice is made in a vacuum. Every decision is shaped by memory, by emotion, by past experiences, by belief systems, by what we think is possible.
And sometimes, by what we’re afraid to admit we want.
So how do we make better decisions?
One way is to recognize when emotion is helpful, and when it’s clouding our view. Emotions carry information. They tell us what matters. But they’re not always telling the truth. Anxiety, for example, often points to danger—but sometimes it’s just pointing to discomfort. And avoiding discomfort doesn’t always lead to growth.
Another way is to test your assumptions. What evidence do you have? Are you making predictions based on fear or on patterns? Are you overgeneralizing from one experience? Are you comparing yourself to an ideal that doesn’t exist?
And sometimes, the best way to decide is to ask a different question. Not just “What should I do?” but “Who do I want to be in this decision?” or “What would I choose if I weren’t afraid?” or “What does this decision align with—my values, or my fears?”
Because at the end of the day, memory, thinking, and decision-making aren’t just mental processes. They’re personal. They shape your story. They shape your future. They shape your relationships and your regrets and your growth.
And the more aware you are of how they work, the more empowered you are to live with clarity instead of confusion.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at emotion and motivation—two forces that drive everything from our relationships to our routines. We’ll explore why we feel what we feel, what motivates change, and how emotions shape the stories we live inside of.
Thanks for listening. I’ll see you in Lesson Seven.