Science can help you make up your mind
DECISIONS, DECISIONS! Our lives are full of them, from the small and mundane ones, to the life-changing. The right to choose is central to our individuality. Yet sometimes we make bad decisions that leave us un- happy or full of regret. Can science help?
"Expect the best, prepare for the worst. – Muhammad Ali Jinnah"
"I think that our fundamental belief is that for us growth is a way of life and we have to grow at all times.– Mukesh Ambani"
"If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.– Barack Obama"
"Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear, wherever they might be.– Lakshmi Mittal"
"It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. – Bill Gates"
"In the business world, the rear view mirror is always clearer than the windshield.Rule#1: Never lose money. Rule#2: Never forget rule No.1. – Warren Buffett"
"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.– Steve Jobs"
Most of us are ignorant of the mental processes that lie behind our decisions. Luckily, what psychologists and neurobiologists are finding may help us all make better choices. Here we bring together some of their many fascinating discoveries to help you make up your mind.
1 Don't Fear The Consequences
WHETHER IT'S CHOOSING between a new car versus a bigger house, or even who to marry, almost every decision we make entails predicting the future. We imagine how our choices will make us feel, and we usually go for the option we think will make us the happiest. The problem with this sort of “ affective forecasting” is that we aren't very good at it.
People routinely overestimate the impact of decision outcomes, both good and bad. “The hedonic consequences of most events are less intense and briefer than most people imagine,” says psychologist from Harvard University. This is as true for trivial events such as going to a restaurant, as it is for major ones such as losing a job.
A major factor leading us to make bad predictions is “loss aversion” --- the belief that a loss will hurt more than a corresponding gain will please. Yet researcher has shown that while loss aversion affected people's choices, when they did lose they found it much less painful than they'd anticipated.
So what are we to do? Rather than looking inwards and imagining how an outcome might make you feel, try to find someone who has made the same choice and see how they felt. Remember also that whatever the future holds, it'll probably hurt or please you less than you imagine.
2 Go With Your Gut
WHILE IT'S TEMPTING to think that good decisions require time, sometimes an instinctive choice is just as good, if not better. A survey by Princeton University found that we make judgments about a person’s competence, trustworthiness, aggressiveness, like ability and attractiveness within the first 100 milliseconds of seeing a new face. Given longer to look — up to one second — the researchers found that observers hardly revised their views, they only became more confident in their snap decisions.
It stands to reason that extra information can help you make rational decisions. Yet paradoxically, sometimes the more information you have, the better off you may be going with your instincts.
The Redboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands found that when making simple purchases, such as clothes, shoppers were happier with their decisions a few weeks later if they had weighed up the alternatives. For more complex purchases such as furniture, however, those who relied on their gut instinct ended up happier.
Research concludes that this unconscious decision-making can be successfully applied way beyond the shopping mall into areas including management and politics.
A major factor leading us to make bad predictions is "loss aversion" – the belief that a loss will hurt more than a corresponding gain will please. Yet research has shown that while loss aversion affected people's choices, when they did lose they found it much less painful than they'd anticipated
3 Consider Your Emotions
YOU MIGHT THINK THAT emotions are the enemy of decision making, but in fact they're integral to it. Whenever you make up your mind, your limbic system — the brain’s emotional centre is — active. University of Southern California neurobiologist, has studied people with damage to only the emotional parts of their brains, and found that they were unable to make basic choices about what to wear or eat. University speculates this may be because our brains store emotional memories of past choices, which we use to inform present decisions.
However, making choices under the influence of an emotion can seriously affect the outcome. Take anger, for example. A study of the University of Mississippi and the University of Pittsburgh found that angry consumers were more likely to opt for the first thing they were offered rather than considering other alternatives. It seems anger can make us impetuous, selfish and risk-prone.
All emotions affect our thinking and motivation, so it may be best to avoid making important decisions under their influence. Yet strangely there’s one emotion that seems to help us make good choices. The American researchers found that sad people took time to consider the various alternatives on offer, and ended up making
the best choices. In fact many studies show that depressed people have the most realistic take on the world. Psychologists have even coined a name for it: depressive realism.
4 Play the Devil's Advocate
HAVE YOU EVER had an argument with someone about a vexatious issue and been frustrated because they only drew on evidence that supported their opinions and ignored anything to the contrary? This is the ubiquitous confirmation bias. This bias becomes a problem if we believe we are making a decision by weighing the alternatives, when in fact we already have a favoured opinion that we simply want to justify.
To make good decisions, you need to do more than latch on to facts and figures that you like best. Admittedly, searching for evidence that could prove you wrong is a painful process. “Perhaps it’s enough to realise that we’re unlikely to be truly objective,” says psychologist Raymond Nickerson at Tufts University in Massachusetts. “Just recognising that this bias exists, and that we’re all subject to it, is probably a good thing.” At the very least, we might hold our views little less dogmatically and choose with a bit more humility.
5 Keep Your Eye on the Ball
OUR DECISIONS SOMETIMES become attached to irrelevant facts and figures. In a classic study that introduced this “anchoring effect,” Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky asked participants to estimate the percentage of African countries in the UN. Before answering, they has to spin a wheel with numbers ranging from zero to 100 and indicate whether that number was higher or lower than the percentage of African countries in the UN. Unknown to them, the wheel was rigged to stop at either ten or 65. This had nothing to do with the actual question but the effect on the answers was dramatic. On average, participants with a ten on the wheel gave an estimate of 25 per cent; those who got 65 estimated 45 per cent. It seems they'd taken their cue from the spin of a wheel.
The same thing happens every time we see something marked “reduced” in a shop. The original price serves as an anchor against which we compare the discounted price, making it look like a bargain even if in absolute terms it’s expensive. So how do you beat the anchor effect? “It's very hard to shake,” admits psychologist of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. One strategy might be to create your own counterbalancing anchors, but even this has its problems. “You don’t know how much you have been affected by an anchor, so it's hard to compensate for it,” says Gilovich.
6 Beware of Social Pressure
YOU MAY LIKE to think of yourself as a single-minded individual, but no-one is immune to social pressure. In 1971, an experiment at Califor-nia’s, Stanford University famously had to be stopped when a group of students who’d been assigned to act as prison guards started mentally abusing another group acting as prisoners. Other studies have also shown that groups of like-minded individuals tend to talk themselves into extreme positions.
How can you avoid the malign influence of social pressure? First, if you suspect you’re making a choice because you think it's what your boss would want, think again. If you’re a member of a group, never assume the group knows best, and if you find everyone agreeing, play the contrarian Finally, beware situations in which you have little individual responsibility — that’s when you’re most likely to make irresponsible choices.
There are occasions when social pressure can be a good thing. In a recent experiment, researchers led by Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University looked at ways to promote environmentally friendly choices. They placed cards in hotel rooms encouraging guests to reuse their towels either out of respect for the environment, for the sake of future generations, or because most guests did so. Peer pressure turned out be 30 per cent more effective than the other motivators.
7 Look at it Another Way
THE “FRAMING EFFECT” — where our choices are skewed by the way the alternatives are presented — explains why we’d rather buy snacks that are “90 per cent fat free” than those with “10 per cent fat.” We prefer options that seem to involve gains, and are averse to those that seem to involve losses. Another factor is whether we see a choice as part of a bigger picture or as separate from previous decisions.
In a study published last year, Benedetto De Martino and Ray Dolan from University College London used functional MRI to probe the brain’s response to framing effects. The scans showed lots of activity in the amygdala part of the brain’s emotional centre — when a person went with the framing effect. People who were least susceptible had just as much activity, but they were better able to suppress this initial emotional response by tapping into the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex, parts of the brain with strong connections to both the amygdala and other bits involved in rational thought. Those with damage to this region of the brain to be impulsive.
We can't learn to ignore framing effects but just knowing that we have this bias is important. There’s evidence that experience and better education can counteract this bias but here's a simple measure to avoid it: look at your options from more than one angle.
8 Don't Cry Over Spilt Milk
DOES THIS SCENARIO sound familiar? At the back of your wardrobe lurks an ill-fitting item of clothing you refuse to throw away because you spent a fortune on it. The force behind this bad decision is called the sunk cost fallacy.
In the 1980s, The Ohio State University demonstrated just how easily we can be duped by it. They got students to imagine they'd bought a weekend skiing trip for $100, and then discovered an even cheaper deal — $50 — to a better resort. Only after paying for both trips were the students told they were on the same weekend. What would they do? Surprisingly, most opted for the less appealing but more expensive trip because of the greater cost already invested in it.
The reason behind this is the more we invest in something, the more commitment we feel towards it. The investment needn’t be financial. Who hasn't persevered with a tedious book? Always remind yourself that the past is the past. “If at the time of considering, whether to end a project you wouldn't initiate it, then it’s probably not a good idea to continue,” says Arkes.
9 Limit Your Options
YOU PROBABLY THINK more choice is better, but consider this: People get more pleasure choosing a chocolate from a selection of five than a selection of 30. So says psychologist Sheena Iyengar from Columbia University, New York, who studies the paradox of choice — the idea that while we think more choice is best, often less is more.
More choice makes more demands on your information-processing skills, and the process can be confusing and time-consuming. Greater choice also increases the chances of making a mistake, so you may feel less satisfied because of a fear that you've missed a better opportunity.
The paradox of choice hits some harder than others. Worst affected are “maximisers” — those who examine all options before making up their minds. “Satisficers” — people who tend to choose the first option that meets their requirements — suffer least. “If you’re out to find ‘good enough’, a lot of the pressure’s off and the task of choosing something in the sea of limitless choice becomes more manageable,” says Barry Schwartz, a psychologist from Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania.
So instead of searching for your ideal camera, ask a friend if he’s happy with his. If he is, it will probably do for you too, says Schwartz, Even in situations when a choice seems far too important to simply satisfice, try to limit the number of options you consider.
YOU MIGHT THINK THAT emotions are the enemy of decision making, but in fact they're integral to it. Whenever you make up your mind, your limbic system — the brain’s emotional centre is — active. University of Southern California neurobiologist, has studied people with damage to only the emotional parts of their brains, and found that they were unable to make basic choices about what to wear or eat. University speculates this may be because our brains store emotional memories of past choices, which we use to inform present decisions.
However, making choices under the influence of an emotion can seriously affect the outcome. Take anger, for example. A study of the University of Mississippi and the University of Pittsburgh found that angry consumers were more likely to opt for the first thing they were offered rather than considering other alternatives. It seems anger can make us impetuous, selfish and risk-prone.
All emotions affect our thinking and motivation, so it may be best to avoid making important decisions under their influence. Yet strangely there’s one emotion that seems to help us make good choices. The American researchers found that sad people took time to consider the various alternatives on offer, and ended up making
the best choices. In fact many studies show that depressed people have the most realistic take on the world. Psychologists have even coined a name for it: depressive realism.
4 Play the Devil's Advocate
HAVE YOU EVER had an argument with someone about a vexatious issue and been frustrated because they only drew on evidence that supported their opinions and ignored anything to the contrary? This is the ubiquitous confirmation bias. This bias becomes a problem if we believe we are making a decision by weighing the alternatives, when in fact we already have a favoured opinion that we simply want to justify.
To make good decisions, you need to do more than latch on to facts and figures that you like best. Admittedly, searching for evidence that could prove you wrong is a painful process. “Perhaps it’s enough to realise that we’re unlikely to be truly objective,” says psychologist Raymond Nickerson at Tufts University in Massachusetts. “Just recognising that this bias exists, and that we’re all subject to it, is probably a good thing.” At the very least, we might hold our views little less dogmatically and choose with a bit more humility.
5 Keep Your Eye on the Ball
OUR DECISIONS SOMETIMES become attached to irrelevant facts and figures. In a classic study that introduced this “anchoring effect,” Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky asked participants to estimate the percentage of African countries in the UN. Before answering, they has to spin a wheel with numbers ranging from zero to 100 and indicate whether that number was higher or lower than the percentage of African countries in the UN. Unknown to them, the wheel was rigged to stop at either ten or 65. This had nothing to do with the actual question but the effect on the answers was dramatic. On average, participants with a ten on the wheel gave an estimate of 25 per cent; those who got 65 estimated 45 per cent. It seems they'd taken their cue from the spin of a wheel.
The same thing happens every time we see something marked “reduced” in a shop. The original price serves as an anchor against which we compare the discounted price, making it look like a bargain even if in absolute terms it’s expensive. So how do you beat the anchor effect? “It's very hard to shake,” admits psychologist of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. One strategy might be to create your own counterbalancing anchors, but even this has its problems. “You don’t know how much you have been affected by an anchor, so it's hard to compensate for it,” says Gilovich.
6 Beware of Social Pressure
YOU MAY LIKE to think of yourself as a single-minded individual, but no-one is immune to social pressure. In 1971, an experiment at Califor-nia’s, Stanford University famously had to be stopped when a group of students who’d been assigned to act as prison guards started mentally abusing another group acting as prisoners. Other studies have also shown that groups of like-minded individuals tend to talk themselves into extreme positions.
How can you avoid the malign influence of social pressure? First, if you suspect you’re making a choice because you think it's what your boss would want, think again. If you’re a member of a group, never assume the group knows best, and if you find everyone agreeing, play the contrarian Finally, beware situations in which you have little individual responsibility — that’s when you’re most likely to make irresponsible choices.
There are occasions when social pressure can be a good thing. In a recent experiment, researchers led by Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University looked at ways to promote environmentally friendly choices. They placed cards in hotel rooms encouraging guests to reuse their towels either out of respect for the environment, for the sake of future generations, or because most guests did so. Peer pressure turned out be 30 per cent more effective than the other motivators.
7 Look at it Another Way
THE “FRAMING EFFECT” — where our choices are skewed by the way the alternatives are presented — explains why we’d rather buy snacks that are “90 per cent fat free” than those with “10 per cent fat.” We prefer options that seem to involve gains, and are averse to those that seem to involve losses. Another factor is whether we see a choice as part of a bigger picture or as separate from previous decisions.
In a study published last year, Benedetto De Martino and Ray Dolan from University College London used functional MRI to probe the brain’s response to framing effects. The scans showed lots of activity in the amygdala part of the brain’s emotional centre — when a person went with the framing effect. People who were least susceptible had just as much activity, but they were better able to suppress this initial emotional response by tapping into the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex, parts of the brain with strong connections to both the amygdala and other bits involved in rational thought. Those with damage to this region of the brain to be impulsive.
We can't learn to ignore framing effects but just knowing that we have this bias is important. There’s evidence that experience and better education can counteract this bias but here's a simple measure to avoid it: look at your options from more than one angle.
8 Don't Cry Over Spilt Milk
DOES THIS SCENARIO sound familiar? At the back of your wardrobe lurks an ill-fitting item of clothing you refuse to throw away because you spent a fortune on it. The force behind this bad decision is called the sunk cost fallacy.
In the 1980s, The Ohio State University demonstrated just how easily we can be duped by it. They got students to imagine they'd bought a weekend skiing trip for $100, and then discovered an even cheaper deal — $50 — to a better resort. Only after paying for both trips were the students told they were on the same weekend. What would they do? Surprisingly, most opted for the less appealing but more expensive trip because of the greater cost already invested in it.
The reason behind this is the more we invest in something, the more commitment we feel towards it. The investment needn’t be financial. Who hasn't persevered with a tedious book? Always remind yourself that the past is the past. “If at the time of considering, whether to end a project you wouldn't initiate it, then it’s probably not a good idea to continue,” says Arkes.
9 Limit Your Options
YOU PROBABLY THINK more choice is better, but consider this: People get more pleasure choosing a chocolate from a selection of five than a selection of 30. So says psychologist Sheena Iyengar from Columbia University, New York, who studies the paradox of choice — the idea that while we think more choice is best, often less is more.
More choice makes more demands on your information-processing skills, and the process can be confusing and time-consuming. Greater choice also increases the chances of making a mistake, so you may feel less satisfied because of a fear that you've missed a better opportunity.
The paradox of choice hits some harder than others. Worst affected are “maximisers” — those who examine all options before making up their minds. “Satisficers” — people who tend to choose the first option that meets their requirements — suffer least. “If you’re out to find ‘good enough’, a lot of the pressure’s off and the task of choosing something in the sea of limitless choice becomes more manageable,” says Barry Schwartz, a psychologist from Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania.
So instead of searching for your ideal camera, ask a friend if he’s happy with his. If he is, it will probably do for you too, says Schwartz, Even in situations when a choice seems far too important to simply satisfice, try to limit the number of options you consider.
However, making choices under the influence of an emotion can seriously affect the outcome. Take anger, for example. A study the University of Mississippi and the University of Pittsburgh found that angry consumers were more likely to pot for the first thing they were offered rather than considering other alternatives. It seems anger can make us impetuous, selfish and risk prone
10 Have Someone Else Choose
WE TEND TO BELIEVE we'll be happier making our own decisions. Yet, no matter the outcome, the process of making a decision can sometimes leave us feeling dissatisfied. Then, it may be better to relinquish control.
Last year, researchers from the Cornell and University of Chicago published a series of experiments that explore this idea. In one test, subjects had to choose between several items without any information to guide them. When asked to indicate their level of satisfaction with the outcome and how they felt about the decision, they were all less satisfied than people who had simply been assigned an option.
The reason, say the researchers, is that the choosers couldn't give themselves credit even if they ended up with a good option, yet still felt burdened by the thought that they might not have chosen the best alternative. Even when choosers had a little information — though not enough to feel responsible for the outcome — they felt no happier choosing than being chosen for.
Researchers believe these findings have broad implications for any decision that’s either or trivial or distasteful. For instance, try letting someone else choose the wine during dinner. “There’s a fixation with choice, a belief it brings happiness,” they says. “Sometimes it doesn't”.
WE TEND TO BELIEVE we'll be happier making our own decisions. Yet, no matter the outcome, the process of making a decision can sometimes leave us feeling dissatisfied. Then, it may be better to relinquish control.
Last year, researchers from the Cornell and University of Chicago published a series of experiments that explore this idea. In one test, subjects had to choose between several items without any information to guide them. When asked to indicate their level of satisfaction with the outcome and how they felt about the decision, they were all less satisfied than people who had simply been assigned an option.
The reason, say the researchers, is that the choosers couldn't give themselves credit even if they ended up with a good option, yet still felt burdened by the thought that they might not have chosen the best alternative. Even when choosers had a little information — though not enough to feel responsible for the outcome — they felt no happier choosing than being chosen for.
Researchers believe these findings have broad implications for any decision that’s either or trivial or distasteful. For instance, try letting someone else choose the wine during dinner. “There’s a fixation with choice, a belief it brings happiness,” they says. “Sometimes it doesn't”.
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