Decision-making is not always linear: it can evolve using a combination of facts and personal biases.
In How We Really Make Decisions David Maister suggests that "nearly all the time, rhetoric triumphs over reason, personality over substance, politics over merits, neuroses over facts."
He refers to Lovaglia’s Law: The more important the outcome of a decision, the more people will resist using evidence to make it.
Bob Sutton also comments on Lovaglia's Law: the more is at stake, the more that people will be motivated to push for solutions that increase their power and decrease other’s power.
It's an interesting proposition. If you want more discussion, read the comments after David Maister's post.
UPDATE: Coincidentally, I've just read this post on how some angel investors make their investment decisions: before they even get to the financial analysis, they go through an initial meeting and then a getting to know you period to establish trust and an understanding of the people they are dealing with ("gut feel"), and only then comes the rational decision process.
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