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Javier E

The Choice Explosion - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...the-choice-explosion.html

choice decision-making bias

shared by Javier E on 03 May 16 - No Cached
  • the social psychologist Sheena Iyengar asked 100 American and Japanese college students to take a piece of paper. On one side, she had them write down the decisions in life they would like to make for themselves. On the other, they wrote the decisions they would like to pass on to others.
  • The Americans desired choice in four times more domains than the Japanese.
  • Americans now have more choices over more things than any other culture in human history. We can choose between a broader array of foods, media sources, lifestyles and identities. We have more freedom to live out our own sexual identities and more religious and nonreligious options to express our spiritual natures.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • But making decisions well is incredibly difficult, even for highly educated professional decision makers. As Chip Heath and Dan Heath point out in their book “Decisive,” 83 percent of corporate mergers and acquisitions do not increase shareholder value, 40 percent of senior hires do not last 18 months in their new position, 44 percent of lawyers would recommend that a young person not follow them into the law.
  • It’s becoming incredibly important to learn to decide well, to develop the techniques of self-distancing to counteract the flaws in our own mental machinery. The Heath book is a very good compilation of those techniques.
  • assume positive intent. When in the midst of some conflict, start with the belief that others are well intentioned. It makes it easier to absorb information from people you’d rather not listen to.
  • Suzy Welch’s 10-10-10 rule. When you’re about to make a decision, ask yourself how you will feel about it 10 minutes from now, 10 months from now and 10 years from now. People are overly biased by the immediate pain of some choice, but they can put the short-term pain in long-term perspective by asking these questions.
  • An "explosion" that may also be a "dissolution" or "disintegration," in my view. Unlimited choices. Conduct without boundaries. All of which may be viewed as either "great" or "terrible." The poor suffer when they have no means to pursue choices, which is terrible. The rich seem only to want more and more, wealth without boundaries, which is great for those so able to do. Yes, we need a new decision-making tool, but perhaps one that is also very old: simplify, simplify,simplify by setting moral boundaries that apply to all and which define concisely what our life together ought to be.
  • our tendency to narrow-frame, to see every decision as a binary “whether or not” alternative. Whenever you find yourself asking “whether or not,” it’s best to step back and ask, “How can I widen my options?”
  • deliberate mistakes. A survey of new brides found that 20 percent were not initially attracted to the man they ended up marrying. Sometimes it’s useful to make a deliberate “mistake” — agreeing to dinner with a guy who is not your normal type. Sometimes you don’t really know what you want and the filters you apply are hurting you.
  • It makes you think that we should have explicit decision-making curriculums in all schools. Maybe there should be a common course publicizing the work of Daniel Kahneman, Cass Sunstein, Dan Ariely and others who study the way we mess up and the techniques we can adopt to prevent error.
  • The explosion of choice places extra burdens on the individual. Poorer Americans have fewer resources to master decision-making techniques, less social support to guide their decision-making and less of a safety net to catch them when they err.
  • the stress of scarcity itself can distort decision-making. Those who experienced stress as children often perceive threat more acutely and live more defensively.
  • The explosion of choice means we all need more help understanding the anatomy of decision-making.
  • living in an area of concentrated poverty can close down your perceived options, and comfortably “relieve you of the burden of choosing life.” It’s hard to maintain a feeling of agency when you see no chance of opportunity.
  • In this way the choice explosion has contributed to widening inequality.
  • The relentless all-hour reruns of "Law and Order" in 100 channel cable markets provide direct rebuff to the touted but hollow promise/premise of wider "choice." The small group of personalities debating a pre-framed trivial point of view, over and over, nightly/daily (in video clips), without data, global comparison, historic reference, regional content, or a deep commitment to truth or knowledge of facts has resulted in many choosing narrower limits: streaming music, coffee shops, Facebook--now a "choice" of 1.65 billion users.
  • It’s important to offer opportunity and incentives. But we also need lessons in self-awareness — on exactly how our decision-making tool is fundamentally flawed, and on mental frameworks we can adopt to avoid messing up even more than we do.
sanderk

Make Good Decisions Faster | Psychology Today - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...make-good-decisions-faster

quick decisions psychology knowledge purchases

shared by sanderk on 23 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • According to studies done by Sheena Iyengar at Columbia University, Americans make an average of 70 decisions each day. We make mundane decisions about what to have for lunch and which route to take to work, as well as defining decisions such as where to live, whom to marry, and whether to keep this job or accept that other offer. As Albert Camus said "life is the sum of our choices."  
  • the longer you spend waffling over what to have for breakfast, the harder it will be to make a good decision with a customer or co-worker later that morning.  The more we hem and haw about what to buy at the mall on Saturday afternoon, the more likely we are to choose to throw back a pound of fries and double dose of fudge dessert on Saturday evening.
  • A simple Know-Think-Do framework can help solve this problem by enabling us to make all of our decisions--big and small; daily and defining--quicker without sacrificing quality.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The quickest, easiest, most effective way to do this is by "consulting an Anti-You" before you make every decision. As one banking executive explained to me, "It's amazing how many poor decisions can be avoided simply by asking one other person for their opinion."
  • The act of explaining your situation to another person often gives you new insights about the decision before the other person even responds.  And the fresh perspective they offer in response is the second bonus.
  • The purpose of a decision is not to find the perfect option. The purpose of a decision is to get you to the next decision.
huffem4

What a 16th-Century Mystic Can Teach Us About Making Good Decisions - 1 views

getpocket.com/...us-about-making-good-decisions

knowledge faith

shared by huffem4 on 02 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • Among the many decision-making methods for life’s big decisions, one that stands out is from an early 16th-century soldier-turned-mystic, St. Ignatius of Loyola.
  • Ignatius uses the language of faith, but, I believe, anyone can apply his method to make more informed decisions.
  • 1. Rely on Reason and Feelings
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • Ignatius advises creating a list, but also takes it a step further by urging people to listen to their feelings as they consider the pros and cons for each option.
  • he asks individuals to consider: Do some pros or cons stand out because they bring you a sense of peace, joy or hope? Or feelings of dread, anxiety or despair?
  • He advises probing the origin of the feelings to find out if they come, for example, from desires for power or greed, fear of what others may think, a desire to do good or to be selfless.
  • Ignatius teaches that freedom from attachment to a particular choice or outcome is essential
  • Ignatius also advises that individuals share their deliberations with a confidant, advice that he followed when making his own decisions.
  • the process of sharing emotions with others helps make sense of our thoughts and feelings.
  • Ignatius advises individuals to act on reason, feeling confident that they have invested their time and energy to make a good choice.
  • How can non-religious people use this advice? I argue they can consider how their decisions will affect the vulnerable, the poorest and the most marginalized
  • He also urged people to make decisions for the “greater glory of God.”
  • Ignatius offers three imaginative exercises if no clear choice emerges:
  • Imagine that a friend comes to you with the same situation
  • Imagine that you are on your deathbed
  • Imagine a conversation with the divine
  • 3. Seek Confirmation
  • 2. Imaginative Reflection
  • The emotions they feel following a decision, such as peace, freedom, joy, love or compassion, might give an indication if it is the right choice.
  • He realized that pursuing worldly honor was not as fulfilling as doing the work of God.
  • In today’s hurried world, a 16th-century Catholic mystics’ advice may seem quaint or his process tedious. However, many modern psychological approaches confirm the value of such reflective practices.
  • Imaginative reflections like these offer clarity to decision-making by providing another perspective to the decision at hand.
adonahue011

Our brains on coronavirus (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

brain science cnn brains opinion education

shared by adonahue011 on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • We constantly weigh costs and benefits with thought experiments to imagine what the consequences of different choices might be, and emotion experiments to imagine how different outcomes would feel.
    • adonahue011
      adonahue011 on 03 Nov 20
       
      This is all very true, but after learning about the way we as humans make decisions often times we don't have much control on the way our brain makes decisions.
  • And this makes relevant a crucial neurobiological factor -- during times of stress, we tend to make lousy decisions.
    • adonahue011
      adonahue011 on 03 Nov 20
       
      So similar to what we learned in TOK this is a great example of the brain and decisions.
  • n cognition and rationality (the cortex)
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • the parts mediating emotion (the limbic system
  • there's endless cross-talk between the two regions
    • adonahue011
      adonahue011 on 03 Nov 20
       
      This is also something we learned, there is so much interconnection in our brains.
  • "I wouldn't do that if I were you," hopefully convincing it not to do something idiotic. But it turns out that the limbic system influences the cortex as well.
  • lamenting how we'd be so much better off in our decision-making if our emotions played no role
  • of the limbic system to talk to the cortex and you get what we'd almost universally view as bad decisions.
  • unrecognizably utilitarian; they have no emotional conflict in choosing to advocate sacrificing the life of a stranger (or, equally so, a loved one) in order to save five others
    • adonahue011
      adonahue011 on 03 Nov 20
       
      Also a very good example, that could be used for discussion in class.
  • the balancing act between cognition and emotion is pretty complex.
  • (and become more at risk for stress-related diseases)
  • we lack control, predictability, outlets for our frustrations, or social support
    • adonahue011
      adonahue011 on 03 Nov 20
       
      Idea that humans like control, we like simple things that we can control. A pandemic, not being something we have complete, simple control over.
  • "We just don't know yet." And in this time, when we need social support the most, the crucially important catchphrase has become "social distancing."
  • he most rational decision-making part of your cortex is the pre-frontal cortex (PFC), while the most frothing-at-the-mouth emotional part of your limbic system is arguably the amygdala, a region central to fear, anxiety and aggression.
  • class of stress hormones causes the PFC to become sluggish, less capable of sending a "let's not do something hasty" signal to the amygdala
    • adonahue011
      adonahue011 on 03 Nov 20
       
      Interesting to know the science behind the feeling I think we are all dealing with right now.
  • Extensive research has explored the consequences of this skewed neurobiology, showing that stress distorts our decisions in consistent ways
  • up having tunnel vision when it comes to making choices and it becomes harder to consider extraneous factors that may actually not be extraneous, or harder to factor future consequences into present considerations.
    • adonahue011
      adonahue011 on 03 Nov 20
       
      "tunnel vision" meaning it is harder to consider outside factors in our choices.
  • We fall back into a usual solution, and instead of trying something different when it doesn't work, the pull is to stick with the usual,
  • . And our decision-making narrows in another sense, in that we contract our circle of who counts as "us," and who merits empathy and consideration. Our moral decisions become more egoistic
sanderk

Under Pressure: Stress and Decision Making - Association for Psychological Science - APS - 1 views

www.psychologicalscience.org/...ure-stress-and-decision-making

stress pressure decision making brain science

shared by sanderk on 21 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Many animals store food to use in times of scarcity, but humans are stockpilers too — individuals routinely keep money in the bank (or under their mattress) and cans in the pantry. However, in some individuals, this collecting behavior is taken to extremes in the form of compulsive hoarding — collecting excessive amounts of objects that have little or no value. Preston found that, across species, including humans, anxiety and threats appear to increase the motivation to acquire and collect food and goods
  • Responses to positive and negative feedback in the ventral striatum were greatly reduced under stress as compared to when there was no stress, suggesting that stress may dampen your perception of the subjective value of a decision.
  • Gaining a better understanding of how stress affects decision making is critical not only for psychological science, but has important, real-world implications
  • sanderk on 21 Oct 19
     
    It is interesting how as humans we still have connections to less developed species. I found it fascinating that the reason why people hoard objects is due to anxiety or stress. People who hoard are stressed about the decision to get rid of an object because they think they may need it later on. I also found it interesting how stress can impair one's decision making by decreasing one's ability to see the value of a decision. This article applies to our class discussions and work because it shows how our emotions, specifically stress, can affect our reasoning.
Javier E

Why We Make Bad Decisions - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...why-we-make-bad-decisions.html

psychology decision-making bias

shared by Javier E on 20 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • SIX years ago I was struck down with a mystery illness.
  • I was offered a vast range of potential diagnoses.
  • Faced with all these confusing and conflicting opinions, I had to work out which expert to trust, whom to believe and whose advice to follow. As an economist specializing in the global economy, international trade and debt, I have spent most of my career helping others make big decisions
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • up until then I hadn’t thought much about the process of decision making. So in between M.R.I.’s, CT scans and spinal taps, I dove into the academic literature on decision making. Not just in my field but also in neuroscience, psychology, sociology, information science, political science and history.
  • Physicians do get things wrong, remarkably often. Studies have shown that up to one in five patients are misdiagnosed. In the United States and Canada it is estimated that 50,000 hospital deaths each year could have been prevented if the real cause of illness had been correctly identified.
  • Yet people are loath to challenge experts.
  • when confronted with the expert, it was as if the independent decision-making parts of many subjects’ brains pretty much switched off. They simply ceded their power to decide to the expert.
  • If we are to control our own destinies, we have to switch our brains back on and come to our medical consultations with plenty of research done, able to use the relevant jargon. If we can’t do this ourselves we need to identify someone in our social or family network who can do so on our behalf.
  • Anxiety, stress and fear — emotions that are part and parcel of serious illness — can distort our choices. Stress makes us prone to tunnel vision, less likely to take in the information we need. Anxiety makes us more risk-averse than we would be regularly and more deferential.
  • It’s not that we can’t be anxious, it’s that we need to acknowledge to ourselves that we are.
  • It is also crucial to ask probing questions not only of the experts but of ourselves.
  • we bring into our decision-making process flaws and errors of our own. All of us show bias when it comes to what information we take in. We typically focus on anything that agrees with the outcome we want.
  • We need to be aware of our natural born optimism, for that harms good decision making, too.
  • We need to acknowledge our tendency to incorrectly process challenging news and actively push ourselves to hear the bad as well as the good. It felt great when I stumbled across information that implied I didn’t need any serious treatment at all. When we find data that supports our hopes we appear to get a dopamine rush similar to the one we get if we eat chocolate, have sex or fall in love
  • But it’s often information that challenges our existing opinions or wishful desires that yields the greatest insights
katedriscoll

Avoiding Psychological Bias in Decision Making - From MindTools.com - 0 views

www.mindtools.com/...voiding-psychological-bias.htm

shared by katedriscoll on 28 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • In this scenario, your decision was affected by
  • confirmation bias. With this, you interpret market information in a way that confirms your preconceptions – instead of seeing it objectively – and you make wrong decisions as a result. Confirmation bias is one of many psychological biases to which we're all susceptible when we make decisions. In this article, we'll look at common types of bias, and we'll outline what you can do to avoid them.
  • Psychologists Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky introduced the concept of psychological bias in the early 1970s. They published their findings in their 1982 book, "Judgment Under Uncertainty." They explained that psychological bias – also known as cognitive bias – is the tendency to make decisions or take action in an illogical way. For example, you might subconsciously make selective use of data, or you might feel pressured to make a decision by powerful colleagues. Psychological bias is the opposite of common sense and clear, measured judgment. It can lead to missed opportunities and poor decision making.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Below, we outline five psychological biases that are common in business decision making. We also look at how you can overcome them, and thereby make better decisions.
Javier E

Opinion | Bias Is a Big Problem. But So Is 'Noise.' - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...noise-bias-kahneman.html

bias problem noise psychology Science research

shared by Javier E on 16 May 21 - No Cached
  • The word “bias” commonly appears in conversations about mistaken judgments and unfortunate decisions. We use it when there is discrimination, for instance against women or in favor of Ivy League graduates
  • the meaning of the word is broader: A bias is any predictable error that inclines your judgment in a particular direction. For instance, we speak of bias when forecasts of sales are consistently optimistic or investment decisions overly cautious.
  • Society has devoted a lot of attention to the problem of bias — and rightly so
  • ...26 more annotations...
  • when it comes to mistaken judgments and unfortunate decisions, there is another type of error that attracts far less attention: noise.
  • To see the difference between bias and noise, consider your bathroom scale. If on average the readings it gives are too high (or too low), the scale is biased
  • It is hard to escape the conclusion that sentencing is in part a lottery, because the punishment can vary by many years depending on which judge is assigned to the case and on the judge’s state of mind on that day. The judicial system is unacceptably noisy.
  • While bias is the average of errors, noise is their variability.
  • Although it is often ignored, noise is a large source of malfunction in society.
  • The average difference between the sentences that two randomly chosen judges gave for the same crime was more than 3.5 years. Considering that the mean sentence was seven years, that was a disconcerting amount of noise.
  • If it shows different readings when you step on it several times in quick succession, the scale is noisy.
  • How much of a difference would you expect to find between the premium values that two competent underwriters assigned to the same risk?
  • Executives in the insurance company said they expected about a 10 percent difference.
  • But the typical difference we found between two underwriters was an astonishing 55 percent of their average premium — more than five times as large as the executives had expected.
  • Many other studies demonstrate noise in professional judgments. Radiologists disagree on their readings of images and cardiologists on their surgery decisions
  • Wherever there is judgment, there is noise — and more of it than you think.
  • Noise causes error, as does bias, but the two kinds of error are separate and independent.
  • A company’s hiring decisions could be unbiased overall if some of its recruiters favor men and others favor women. However, its hiring decisions would be noisy, and the company would make many bad choices
  • Where does noise come from?
  • There is much evidence that irrelevant circumstances can affect judgments.
  • for instance, a judge’s mood, fatigue and even the weather can all have modest but detectable effects on judicial decisions.
  • people can have different general tendencies. Judges often vary in the severity of the sentences they mete out: There are “hanging” judges and lenient ones.
  • People can have not only different general tendencies (say, whether they are harsh or lenient) but also different patterns of assessment (say, which types of cases they believe merit being harsh or lenient about).
  • Underwriters differ in their views of what is risky, and doctors in their views of which ailments require treatment.
  • Once you become aware of noise, you can look for ways to reduce it.
  • independent judgments from a number of people can be averaged (a frequent practice in forecasting)
  • Guidelines, such as those often used in medicine, can help professionals reach better and more uniform decisions
  • imposing structure and discipline in interviews and other forms of assessment tends to improve judgments of job candidates.
  • No noise-reduction techniques will be deployed, however, if we do not first recognize the existence of noise.
  • Organizations and institutions, public and private, will make better decisions if they take noise seriously.
ilanaprincilus06

Can Neuroscience Debunk Free Will? | Time - 0 views

time.com/...neuroscience-free-will

neuroscience free will illusion conscious brain

shared by ilanaprincilus06 on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • If we truly possess free will, then we each consciously control our decisions and actions. If we feel as if we possess free will, then our sense of control is a useful illusion
  • brain activity underlying a given decision occurs before a person consciously apprehends the decision.
  • thought patterns leading to conscious awareness of what we’re going to do are already in motion before we know we’ll do it.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Without conscious knowledge of why we’re choosing as we’re choosing, the argument follows, we cannot claim to be exercising “free” will.
  • If free will is drained of its power by scientific determinism, free-will supporters argue, then we’re moving down a dangerous path where people can’t be held accountable for their decisions, since those decisions are triggered by neural activity occurring outside of conscious awareness.
  • investigating whether our subjective experience of free will is threatened by the possibility of “neuroprediction” – the idea that tracking brain activity can predict decisions.
  • The students were then given an article to read about a woman named Jill who tested wearing the cap for a month, during which time neuroscientists were able to predict all of her decisions, including which candidates she’d vote for. The technology and Jill were made up for the study.The students were asked whether they thought this technology was plausible and whether they felt that it undermines free will. Eighty percent responded that it is plausible, but most did not believe it threatened free will unless the technology went beyond prediction and veered into manipulation of decisions.
  • Our subjective understanding about how we process information to arrive at a decision isn’t just a theoretical exercise; what we think about it matters.
sanderk

Council Post: How Your Emotions Influence Your Decisions - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...tions-influence-your-decisions

decisions emotions influence psychology knowledge

shared by sanderk on 23 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • emotions influence, skew or sometimes completely determine the outcome of a large number of decisions we are confronted with in a day. Therefore, it behooves all of us who want to make the best, most objective decisions to know all we can about emotions and their effect on our decision-making.
  • First, every feeling begins with an external stimulus, whether it's what someone said or a physical event.
  • stimuli, then emotions, then hormones and, finally, feelings. In other words, your emotions impact your decision-making process by creating certain feelings.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  •  when we feel threatened by something, the initial emotion is labeled “fear." That fear, by means of hormones, results in the production of fight-or-flight responsive feelings, allowing our body to react quickly and appropriately for its own self-preservation.
  • To continue with our fear to frightened/inferior example above, we can look at the Emotion Wheel to more clearly visualize that "fear" on the inner circle is different from "frightened" on the outer one. Or, to switch our focus to the positive, we can use the Emotion Wheel to see that the emotion of “happy” on the inner circle can result in a feeling of “joyful," “powerful” or even “proud” on the outside circle.
  • The payoff is in understanding that the six emotions are only broad categories with little specificity, while the feelings are more akin to how we actually and specifically describe what’s going on in our brains and bodies.
  • After you have identified and selected an item from the outer circle, track that feeling inward through the two rings until you have reached the basic emotion (inner circle). Using this process, you can see that while you think you are experiencing a feeling, you are really dealing with an emotion.
  • you do need to consider exactly what the problem is and the ramifications of your proposed solution.
  • Recognize and name all feelings you are experiencing in connection with the decision
  • Be aware of whether you want to make a decision from this specific emotion or if you want to adjust the course.
aliciathompson1

Decisions Are Emotional, not Logical: The Neuroscience behind Decision Making | Big Think - 0 views

bigthink.com/...science-behind-decision-making

decision making logic emotion

shared by aliciathompson1 on 04 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • decision-making isn’t logical, it’s emotional, according to the latest findings in neuroscience.
  • A few years ago, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio made a groundbreaking discovery
  • So at the point of decision, emotions are very important for choosing. In fact even with what we believe are logical decisions, the very point of choice is arguably always based on emotion.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • There’s a detailed and systematic way to go about building vision the right way.
julia rhodes

How our brain assess bargains - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...2013-12-brain-bargains.html

brain science language technology knowledge research science bargains brain psychology education

shared by julia rhodes on 23 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The 'supermarket shoppers' were brain-scanned to test their reactions to promotions and special offers in a major cutting-edge project by UK-based SBXL, one of Europe's leading shopping behaviour specialists and Bangor University's respected School of Psychology.
  • We know from other research that people are not as good at making rational decisions as they might expect, often using "rules of thumb" and educated guesses to evaluate decisions. Using brain imaging techniques we hope to get a better understanding of how the brain responds to special offers and how this may influence the decisions we make. This also gives us the chance to do some research on how we make decisions in a real world context."
  • Our data also agrees with previous research suggesting that as offers, or decisions get more complex, instead of working things out, our brains take shortcuts, and may guess that an offer is good. Interestingly, in our study people were just as good at selecting good complex offers from bad as they were for less complex ones, suggesting this guessing method may be as good in some cases as "working it out"."
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • "It turns out we are not as good at picking good offers as you might expect, with the average shopper in our experiment only picking 60% of good offers compared to bad. We also found that age had a strong negative affect on the ability to choose good offers, with older people less able to choose good offers over bad ones. We find this latter effect very interesting and would like to do some more research to find out why this may be the case."
  • The advantage of using fMRI to image the brain while actively making shopping decisions is that it enables us to see how the whole brain responds, including the 'deeper' areas of the brain, such as those associated with emotion and desire. This lets us understand more about what makes an offer appealing: in some cases the choice appears to be more rational, and in other cases we can see emotional circuitry getting involved in the decision-making process".
  • In particular we are interested in how factors we are unconsciously aware of can override what might be considered the optimal choice based on conscious judgements. We hope this partnership with SBXL will lead to further research in this area."
dicindioha

Daniel Kahneman On Hiring Decisions - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/man-on-hiring-decisions-2013-1

shared by dicindioha on 03 May 17 - No Cached
  • Most hiring decisions come down to a gut decision. According to Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, however, this process is extremely flawed and there's a much better way.
    • dicindioha
      dicindioha on 03 May 17
       
      hiring comes down to 'gut feeling'
  • First, select a few traits that are prerequisites for success in this position (technical proficiency, engaging personality, reliability, and so on. Don't overdo it — six dimensions is a good number. The traits you choose should be as independent as possible from each other, and you should feel that you can assess them reliably by asking a few factual questions. Next, make a list of those questions for each trait and think about how you will score it, say on a 1-5 scale. You should have an idea of what you will call "very weak" or "very strong."
    • dicindioha
      dicindioha on 03 May 17
       
      WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IN AN INTERVIEW
  • Kahneman asked interviewers to put aside personal judgments and limit interviews to a series of factual questions meant to generate a score on six separate personality traits. A few months later, it became clear that Kahneman's systematic approach was a vast improvement over gut decisions. It was so effective that the army would use his exact method for decades to come. Why you should care is because this superior method can be copied by any organization — and really, by anyone facing a hard decision.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Do not skip around. To evaluate each candidate add up the six scores ... Firmly resolve that you will hire the candidate whose final score is the highest, even if there is another one whom you like better — try to resist your wish to invent broken legs to change the ranking.
  • than if you do what people normally do in such situations, which is to go into the interview unprepared and to make choices by an overall intuitive judgment such as "I looked into his eyes and liked what I saw."
  • dicindioha on 03 May 17
     
    we cannot always use simply a 'gut feeling' from our so called 'reasoning' and emotional response to make big decisions like job hiring, which is what happens much of the time. this is a really interesting way to do it systematically. you still use your own perspective, but the questions asked will hopefully lead you to a better outcome
kaylynfreeman

Heuristics and Biases, Related But Not the Same | Psychology Today - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...nd-biases-related-not-the-same

psychology brain science knowledge bias

shared by kaylynfreeman on 04 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • By treating them as the same, we miss nuances that are important for understanding human decision-making.
  • Biases—regardless of whether they are hardwired into us due to evolution, learned through socialization or direct experience—or a function of genetically influenced traits, represent predispositions to favor a given conclusion over other conclusions. Therefore, biases might be considered the leanings, priorities, and inclinations that influence our decisions[2].
  • Heuristics are mental shortcuts that allow us to make decisions more quickly, frugally, and/or accurately than if we considered additional information. They are derived from experience and formal learning and are open to continuous updates based on new experiences and information. Therefore, heuristics represent the strategies we employ to filter and attend to information[3].
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • This preference, which is perhaps a strong one, may have resulted in a bias to maintain the status quo. You rely on heuristics to help identify your deodorant (usually by sight) and you add it to your virtual cart and place your order. In this instance, your bias influenced your preference toward your current deodorant, and your heuristic helped you to identify it. Potential stinkiness crisis averted.
  • In that case, you will likely be motivated to make a purchasing decision consistent with your strong bias (i.e., look to purchase it from a different vendor, maintaining the status quo with your deodorant). Thus, in this scenario, you decide to look elsewhere.
  • At this step, the availability heuristic is likely to guide your decision, causing you to navigate to an alternative site that quickly comes to mind[6].
  • Your heuristics will help you select an alternative product that meets some criteria.
  • satisficing heuristic (opting for the first product that looks good enough), a similarity heuristic (opting for the product that looks closest to your current deodorant) or some other heuristic to help you select the product you decide to order.
  • The question, though, is often whether your biases and heuristics are aiding or inhibiting the ecological rationality of your decision, and that will vary from situation to situation.
sanderk

Why Getting Too Little Sleep Could Lead To Risky Decision Making - 1 views

www.forbes.com/...-lead-to-risky-decision-making

decision making sleep social media phones

shared by sanderk on 21 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • The list of physical and mental problems that we know come from sleeping too little is getting longer.  A new study suggests another: shorting ourselves on sleep may lead to making riskier decisions, and we may not even realize we’re doing it.
  • The researchers were also interested in how the participants perceived their decisions—if they saw them as more risky than they’d otherwise be, given a few more hours of sleep. Most of the participants said they didn’t see any difference. “We therefore do not notice that we are acting riskier when suffering from a lack of sleep," said Christian Baumann
  • The good news is that for most of us this is a problem with a solution, although we’re up against some tough distractions to reach it. A diet of streaming, social media and video games is eating up more of our evening hours, along with the traditional sleep erasers like stress.
  • sanderk on 21 Oct 19
     
    Until I read this article I never knew that the lack of sleep actually leads to riskier decision making. I always thought that the lack of sleep would just cause people to become easily irritable and groggy. There is a very simple solution to this problem and it is just getting more sleep. However, I feel that it is very difficult for students to get enough sleep because of stress and schoolwork. Some of this stress can be eliminated by not using your phone as much. Also, by not using your phone as much, you will have more time in your day to accomplish work. This applies to our class discussions because we allow our phones to influence much of our day. Also, we need to be able to make good decisions in our everyday lives without taking too many unnecessary risks.
krystalxu

When You Fear Making the "Wrong" Decision - 0 views

tinybuddha.com/...fear-making-the-wrong-decision

decision making psychology brain science fear choice science

shared by krystalxu on 08 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • “Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.”
  • mind resists all attempts to make any kind of decision at all.
  • immobilized, unable to push through the debilitating fear.
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  • I realized that the issue isn’t about being afraid to go to Korea. The real issue is that I have an overall fear of making the “wrong” decisions in my life.
  • Understand that there are no “wrong” decisions.
  • Listening closely to my fears about Korea made me aware of some pretty negative beliefs I held about myself and doubts I had in my abilities.
  • Make peace with your emotions.
  • I’m hearing the messages my mind, body, and spirit are trying to tell me because I’ve made a conscious decision to listen
  • It really takes the pressure off if you understand that every experience you have, whether you characterize it as “good” or “bad,” is exactly the experience you need to have at that moment. Some choices may lead to more painful lessons than others, but nothing hurts like living in fear.
  • Intuition can use fear to help you grow.
  • Fear is often described as a psychological response to a perceived threat.
  • It only makes sense to avoid things that can potentially harm you.
  • many of us have developed fear from negative experiences in our past.
  • We have built a protective fence around our emotional scars, and learned to ward off anybody or anything that triggers an unconscious fear.
  • The next time you feel fear, embrace it, examine it, and if guided to do so, move boldly toward it.
krystalxu

Decision Making: Why do we make the wrong choices although we are aware of the right on... - 0 views

www.quora.com/we-are-aware-of-the-right-ones

decision making psychology knowledge choice brain science

shared by krystalxu on 08 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • you blame yourself for not opting for 7 (which was available to you) forgetting that you would not have known that at time of buying the ticket.
  • Unknown Variables
  • two possibilities based on the information available.
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  • your estimation was not proven to be correct because the price fell as there were more people who were willing to sell than to buy.
  • It is wrong to blame yourself for something which you were not capable of knowing at the time of making decisions.
  • Competitive Atmosphere
  • We win or lose not only on the basis of  how good or bad we performed but also how good or bad our competitors performed.
  • t is futile to blame yourself or the organization in case your expectations are not fulfilled.
  • Compatibility Issues
  • Hasty Decisions
  • We often take decisions based on impulse rather than careful analysis of the pros and cons of taking decisions. 
  • you may have to repent in leisure.
  • You can avoid much failure if you decide after due analysis and due consideration.
  • Choosing Soft Options
  • There is no inherent reason why medicines should taste horrible — but effective ones usually do. Similarly, there is no inherent reason why decisions should be distasteful — but most effective ones are.” 
  • you are sure to pay the price later for buying immediate peace.
Javier E

Why Are Hundreds of Harvard Students Studying Ancient Chinese Philosophy? - Christine G... - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...280356

psychology habit chinese Philosophy Confucius reason career decision-making lifestyle

shared by Javier E on 14 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Puett's course Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory has become the third most popular course at the university. The only classes with higher enrollment are Intro to Economics and Intro to Computer Science.
  • the class fulfills one of Harvard's more challenging core requirements, Ethical Reasoning. It's clear, though, that students are also lured in by Puett's bold promise: “This course will change your life.”
  • Puett uses Chinese philosophy as a way to give undergraduates concrete, counter-intuitive, and even revolutionary ideas, which teach them how to live a better life. 
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  • Puett puts a fresh spin on the questions that Chinese scholars grappled with centuries ago. He requires his students to closely read original texts (in translation) such as Confucius’s Analects, the Mencius, and the Daodejing and then actively put the teachings into practice in their daily lives. His lectures use Chinese thought in the context of contemporary American life to help 18- and 19-year-olds who are struggling to find their place in the world figure out how to be good human beings; how to create a good society; how to have a flourishing life. 
  • Puett began offering his course to introduce his students not just to a completely different cultural worldview but also to a different set of tools. He told me he is seeing more students who are “feeling pushed onto a very specific path towards very concrete career goals”
  • Puett tells his students that being calculating and rationally deciding on plans is precisely the wrong way to make any sort of important life decision. The Chinese philosophers they are reading would say that this strategy makes it harder to remain open to other possibilities that don’t fit into that plan.
  • Students who do this “are not paying enough attention to the daily things that actually invigorate and inspire them, out of which could come a really fulfilling, exciting life,” he explains. If what excites a student is not the same as what he has decided is best for him, he becomes trapped on a misguided path, slated to begin an unfulfilling career.
  • He teaches them that:   The smallest actions have the most profound ramifications. 
  • From a Chinese philosophical point of view, these small daily experiences provide us endless opportunities to understand ourselves. When we notice and understand what makes us tick, react, feel joyful or angry, we develop a better sense of who we are that helps us when approaching new situations. Mencius, a late Confucian thinker (4th century B.C.E.), taught that if you cultivate your better nature in these small ways, you can become an extraordinary person with an incredible influence
  • Decisions are made from the heart. Americans tend to believe that humans are rational creatures who make decisions logically, using our brains. But in Chinese, the word for “mind” and “heart” are the same.
  • If the body leads, the mind will follow. Behaving kindly (even when you are not feeling kindly), or smiling at someone (even if you aren’t feeling particularly friendly at the moment) can cause actual differences in how you end up feeling and behaving, even ultimately changing the outcome of a situation.
  • In the same way that one deliberately practices the piano in order to eventually play it effortlessly, through our everyday activities we train ourselves to become more open to experiences and phenomena so that eventually the right responses and decisions come spontaneously, without angst, from the heart-mind.
  • Whenever we make decisions, from the prosaic to the profound (what to make for dinner; which courses to take next semester; what career path to follow; whom to marry), we will make better ones when we intuit how to integrate heart and mind and let our rational and emotional sides blend into one. 
  • Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do,” a view shared by thinkers such as Confucius, who taught that the importance of rituals lies in how they inculcate a certain sensibility in a person.
  • “The Chinese philosophers we read taught that the way to really change lives for the better is from a very mundane level, changing the way people experience and respond to the world, so what I try to do is to hit them at that level. I’m not trying to give my students really big advice about what to do with their lives. I just want to give them a sense of what they can do daily to transform how they live.”
  • Their assignments are small ones: to first observe how they feel when they smile at a stranger, hold open a door for someone, engage in a hobby. He asks them to take note of what happens next: how every action, gesture, or word dramatically affects how others respond to them. Then Puett asks them to pursue more of the activities that they notice arouse positive, excited feelings.
  • Once they’ve understood themselves better and discovered what they love to do they can then work to become adept at those activities through ample practice and self-cultivation. Self-cultivation is related to another classical Chinese concept: that effort is what counts the most, more than talent or aptitude. We aren’t limited to our innate talents; we all have enormous potential to expand our abilities if we cultivate them
  • To be interconnected, focus on mundane, everyday practices, and understand that great things begin with the very smallest of acts are radical ideas for young people living in a society that pressures them to think big and achieve individual excellence.
  • One of Puett’s former students, Adam Mitchell, was a math and science whiz who went to Harvard intending to major in economics. At Harvard specifically and in society in general, he told me, “we’re expected to think of our future in this rational way: to add up the pros and cons and then make a decision. That leads you down the road of ‘Stick with what you’re good at’”—a road with little risk but little reward.
  • after his introduction to Chinese philosophy during his sophomore year, he realized this wasn’t the only way to think about the future. Instead, he tried courses he was drawn to but wasn’t naturally adroit at because he had learned how much value lies in working hard to become better at what you love. He became more aware of the way he was affected by those around him, and how they were affected by his own actions in turn. Mitchell threw himself into foreign language learning, feels his relationships have deepened, and is today working towards a master’s degree in regional studies.
  • “I can happily say that Professor Puett lived up to his promise, that the course did in fact change my life.”
Javier E

Data-Driven Decisions Can Aid Companies' Productivity - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...24unboxed.html

economic economic benefit digital computers decision-making corporations

shared by Javier E on 25 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • the data explosion is also an enormous opportunity. In a modern economy, information should be the prime asset — the raw material of new products and services, smarter decisions, competitive advantage for companies, and greater growth and productivity.
  • Is there any real evidence of a “data payoff” across the corporate world? It has taken a while, but new research led by Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, suggests that the beginnings are now visible.
  • studied 179 large companies. Those that adopted “data-driven decision making” achieved productivity that was 5 to 6 percent higher than could be explained by other factors, including how much the companies invested in technology, the researchers said.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • In the study, based on a survey and follow-up interviews, data-driven decision making was defined not only by collecting data, but also by how it is used — or not — in making crucial decisions, like whether to create a new product or service. The central distinction, according to Mr. Brynjolfsson, is between decisions based mainly on “data and analysis” and on the traditional management arts of “experience and intuition.”
  • The technology absorption lag accounts for the delayed productivity benefits, observes Robert J. Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University. “It’s never pure technology that makes the difference,” Mr. Gordon says. “It’s reorganizing things — how work is done. And technology does allow new forms of organization.”
  • The Internet, according to Mr. Gordon, qualifies as the third industrial revolution — but one that will prove far more short-lived than the previous two. “I think we’re seeing hints that we’re running through inventions of the Internet revolution,” he says.
Javier E

The Irrational Consumer: Why Economics Is Dead Wrong About How We Make Choices - Derek ... - 4 views

www.theatlantic.com/...267255

rational choice rationality psychology consumer economics

shared by Javier E on 20 May 15 - No Cached
  • Atlantic.displayRandomElement('#header li.business .sponsored-dropdown-item'); Derek Thompson - Derek Thompson is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees business coverage for the website. More Derek has also written for Slate, BusinessWeek, and the Daily Beast. He has appeared as a guest on radio and television networks, including NPR, the BBC, CNBC, and MSNBC. All Posts RSS feed Share Share on facebook Share on linkedin Share on twitter « Previous Thompson Email Print Close function plusOneCallback () { $(document).trigger('share'); } $(document).ready(function() { var iframeUrl = "\/ad\/thanks-iframe\/TheAtlanticOnline\/channel_business;src=blog;by=derek-thompson;title=the-irrational-consumer-why-economics-is-dead-wrong-about-how-we-make-choices;pos=sharing;sz=640x480,336x280,300x250"; var toolsClicked = false; $('#toolsTop').click(function() { toolsClicked = 'top'; }); $('#toolsBottom').click(function() { toolsClicked = 'bottom'; }); $('#thanksForSharing a.hide').click(function() { $('#thanksForSharing').hide(); }); var onShareClickHandler = function() { var top = parseInt($(this).css('top').replace(/px/, ''), 10); toolsClicked = (top > 600) ? 'bottom' : 'top'; }; var onIframeReady = function(iframe) { var win = iframe.contentWindow; // Don't show the box if there's no ad in it if (win.$('.ad').children().length == 1) { return; } var visibleAds = win.$('.ad').filter(function() { return !($(this).css('display') == 'none'); }); if (visibleAds.length == 0) { // Ad is hidden, so don't show return; } if (win.$('.ad').hasClass('adNotLoaded')) { // Ad failed to load so don't show return; } $('#thanksForSharing').css('display', 'block'); var top; if(toolsClicked == 'bottom' && $('#toolsBottom').length) { top = $('#toolsBottom')[0].offsetTop + $('#toolsBottom').height() - 310; } else { top = $('#toolsTop')[0].offsetTop + $('#toolsTop').height() + 10; } $('#thanksForSharing').css('left', (-$('#toolsTop').offset().left + 60) + 'px'); $('#thanksForSharing').css('top', top + 'px'); }; var onShare = function() { // Close "Share successful!" AddThis plugin popup if (window._atw && window._atw.clb && $('#at15s:visible').length) { _atw.clb(); } if (iframeUrl == null) { return; } $('#thanksForSharingIframe').attr('src', "\/ad\/thanks-iframe\/TheAtlanticOnline\/channel_business;src=blog;by=derek-thompson;title=the-irrational-consumer-why-economics-is-dead-wrong-about-how-we-make-choices;pos=sharing;sz=640x480,336x280,300x250"); $('#thanksForSharingIframe').load(function() { var iframe = this; var win = iframe.contentWindow; if (win.loaded) { onIframeReady(iframe); } else { win.$(iframe.contentDocument).ready(function() { onIframeReady(iframe); }) } }); }; if (window.addthis) { addthis.addEventListener('addthis.ready', function() { $('.articleTools .share').mouseover(function() { $('#at15s').unbind('click', onShareClickHandler); $('#at15s').bind('click', onShareClickHandler); }); }); addthis.addEventListener('addthis.menu.share', function(evt) { onShare(); }); } // This 'share' event is used for testing, so one can call // $(document).trigger('share') to get the thank you for // sharing box to appear. $(document).bind('share', function(event) { onShare(); }); if (!window.FB || (window.FB && !window.FB._apiKey)) { // Hook into the fbAsyncInit function and register our listener there var oldFbAsyncInit = (window.fbAsyncInit) ? window.fbAsyncInit : (function() { }); window.fbAsyncInit = function() { oldFbAsyncInit(); FB.Event.subscribe('edge.create', function(response) { // to hide the facebook comments box $('#facebookLike span.fb_edge_comment_widget').hide(); onShare(); }); }; } else if (window.FB) { FB.Event.subscribe('edge.create', function(response) { // to hide the facebook comments box $('#facebookLike span.fb_edge_comment_widget').hide(); onShare(); }); } }); The Irrational Consumer: Why Economics Is Dead Wrong About How We Make Choices By Derek Thompson he
  • First, making a choice is physically exhausting, literally, so that somebody forced to make a number of decisions in a row is likely to get lazy and dumb.
  • Second, having too many choices can make us less likely to come to a conclusion. In a famous study of the so-called "paradox of choice", psychologists Mark Lepper and Sheena Iyengar found that customers presented with six jam varieties were more likely to buy one than customers offered a choice of 24.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Many of our mistakes stem from a central "availability bias." Our brains are computers, and we like to access recently opened files, even though many decisions require a deep body of information that might require some searching. Cheap example: We remember the first, last, and peak moments of certain experiences.
  • The third check against the theory of the rational consumer is the fact that we're social animals. We let our friends and family and tribes do our thinking for us
  • neurologists are finding that many of the biases behavioral economists perceive in decision-making start in our brains. "Brain studies indicate that organisms seem to be on a hedonic treadmill, quickly habituating to homeostasis," McFadden writes. In other words, perhaps our preference for the status quo isn't just figuratively our heads, but also literally sculpted by the hand of evolution inside of our brains.
  • The popular psychological theory of "hyperbolic discounting" says people don't properly evaluate rewards over time. The theory seeks to explain why many groups -- nappers, procrastinators, Congress -- take rewards now and pain later, over and over again. But neurology suggests that it hardly makes sense to speak of "the brain," in the singular, because it's two very different parts of the brain that process choices for now and later. The choice to delay gratification is mostly processed in the frontal system. But studies show that the choice to do something immediately gratifying is processed in a different system, the limbic system, which is more viscerally connected to our behavior, our "reward pathways," and our feelings of pain and pleasure.
  • the final message is that neither the physiology of pleasure nor the methods we use to make choices are as simple or as single-minded as the classical economists thought. A lot of behavior is consistent with pursuit of self-interest, but in novel or ambiguous decision-making environments there is a good chance that our habits will fail us and inconsistencies in the way we process information will undo us.
  • Our brains seem to operate like committees, assigning some tasks to the limbic system, others to the frontal system. The "switchboard" does not seem to achieve complete, consistent communication between different parts of the brain. Pleasure and pain are experienced in the limbic system, but not on one fixed "utility" or "self-interest" scale. Pleasure and pain have distinct neural pathways, and these pathways adapt quickly to homeostasis, with sensation coming from changes rather than levels
  • Social networks are sources of information, on what products are available, what their features are, and how your friends like them. If the information is accurate, this should help you make better choices. On the other hand, it also makes it easier for you to follow the crowd rather than engaging in the due diligence of collecting and evaluating your own information and playing it against your own preferences
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