Tough dilemmas

Two simple mechanisms that can help with difficult choices, can this be true?

Garry is a bit of a hit with the women — or at least that is what he thinks of himself. But it’s time to settle down, and he gets engaged to his long-time girlfriend Lynne, the eldest of Charlie’s four daughters. Yet he is in two minds. Can he really be a faithful husband? Actually, does he want to be a faithful husband? As the wedding nears, his doubts grow, so much so that, one evening in the pub, his future father-in-law spots his anguish. Charlie places a beermat in front of Garry, and says, “Imagine this is a button you can press to call the whole wedding off. Would you do it?”

This is a storyline from the British soap opera Eastenders nearly twenty years ago. It is a little paraphrased, as my memory is a bit hazy (maybe it was a friend instead of Garry’s prospective father-in-law who confronted him). What I do remember is the use of the trick-with-the-beermat. It is the equivalent of the behavioural device of prompted or forced choice: it eliminates the option of not making a decision. Garry must make up his mind: not pressing the button means choosing to tie the knot, pressing it means choosing to remain an unrestrained bachelor. (If you’re curious, Garry did not press the button, married Lynne, and supplied numerous new storylines, having turned out…