If it had been me in that situation, I might have reacted pretty much as you did, because I have a heuristic to leave other people’s kids alone when the parents are around. Nothing riles me quite like seeing someone else interact with my child in a bossy way, and I have noticed that others often react the same.
Near a school I would expect adults (including in cars) to be more on the lookout for kids running around and so my awareness of danger would be lowered relative to my awareness of etiquette and the rule to look after my own kids.
There have been several times in the past year where I just want to kick myself for not doing the right thing at the right time. Is this a form of akrasia?
No, the term akrasia should be reserved for when you have already computed what you want to do, and fail to carry through with the want.
What you describe seems more like a matter of doing the best with limited computing resources. Making what in retrospect appears to be the wrong decision should, if it has not had dire consequences, be good news: you get to adjust the internal “weights” you assign to the relevant rules, and so prepare yourself for right decisions in future.
Don’t beat yourself up for not “thinking faster”, simply reflect on your repertoire of relevant actions in similar contexts, perhaps try to expand it. For instance you may want to practice with shouting “stop” so that it works. ;)
If it had been me in that situation, I might have reacted pretty much as you did, because I have a heuristic to leave other people’s kids alone when the parents are around. Nothing riles me quite like seeing someone else interact with my child in a bossy way, and I have noticed that others often react the same.
Near a school I would expect adults (including in cars) to be more on the lookout for kids running around and so my awareness of danger would be lowered relative to my awareness of etiquette and the rule to look after my own kids.
No, the term akrasia should be reserved for when you have already computed what you want to do, and fail to carry through with the want.
What you describe seems more like a matter of doing the best with limited computing resources. Making what in retrospect appears to be the wrong decision should, if it has not had dire consequences, be good news: you get to adjust the internal “weights” you assign to the relevant rules, and so prepare yourself for right decisions in future.
Don’t beat yourself up for not “thinking faster”, simply reflect on your repertoire of relevant actions in similar contexts, perhaps try to expand it. For instance you may want to practice with shouting “stop” so that it works. ;)