They asked students to choose one of four hypothetical cars, based either on a simple list of four specifications such as mileage and legroom, or a longer list of 12 such features. At times like these, you may be better off avoiding conscious deliberation and instead leave the decision to your unconscious brain, as research by Ap Dijksterhuis and colleagues from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands shows ( Science, vol 311, p 1005). Information overload can be a problem in all sorts of situations, from choosing a school for your child to picking a holiday destination. Yet paradoxically, sometimes the more information you have the better off you may be going with your instincts. It stands to reason that extra information can help you make well-informed, rational decisions. Of course, as you get to know someone better you refine your first impressions. Given longer to look – up to 1 second – the researchers found observers hardly revised their views, they only became more confident in their snap decisions ( Psychological Science, vol 17, p 592). Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov from Princeton University found that we make judgements about a person’s trustworthiness, competence, aggressiveness, likeability and attractiveness within the first 100 milliseconds of seeing a new face. In our everyday lives, we make fast and competent decisions about who to trust and interact with. It is tempting to think that to make good decisions you need time to systematically weigh up all the pros and cons of various alternatives, but sometimes a snap judgement or instinctive choice is just as good, if not better. “Whatever the future holds it will hurt or please you less than you imagine” 2 Go with your gut instincts The worst might never happen – and if it does you have the psychological resilience to cope. Remember also that whatever the future holds, it will probably hurt or please you less than you imagine. So what is a poor affective forecaster supposed to do? Rather than looking inwards and imagining how a given outcome might make you feel, try to find someone who has made the same decision or choice, and see how they felt. “We’re very good at finding new ways to see the world that make it a better place for us to live in,” he says. He puts this down to our unsung psychological resilience and our ability to rationalise almost any situation. Yet Gilbert and his colleagues have recently shown that while loss aversion affected people’s choices, when they did lose they found it much less painful than they had anticipated ( Psychological Science, vol 17, p 649). So most people would only gamble £5 on the flip of a coin if they could win more than £10. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman from Princeton University has found, for instance, that most people are unwilling to accept a 50:50 bet unless the amount they could win is roughly twice the amount they might lose. Take our expert-led online neuroscience course to discover how your brain worksĪ 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.Sensibly, we usually plump for the option that we think will make us the happiest overall. In each case we imagine how the outcomes of our choices will make us feel, and what the emotional or “hedonic” consequences of our actions will be. Whether it’s choosing between a long weekend in Paris or a trip to the ski slopes, a new car versus a bigger house, or even who to marry, almost every decision we make entails predicting the future. Here we bring together some of their many fascinating discoveries in the New Scientist guide to making up your mind. Most of us are ignorant of the mental processes that lie behind our decisions, but this has become a hot topic for investigation, and luckily what psychologists and neurobiologists are finding may help us all make better choices. We must be able to predict the future, accurately perceive the present situation, have insight into the minds of others and deal with uncertainty. Making good decisions requires us to balance the seemingly antithetical forces of emotion and rationality. Yet sometimes we make bad decisions that leave us unhappy or full of regret. It is central to our individuality: the very definition of free will. Decisions, decisions! Our lives are full of them, from the small and mundane, such as what to wear or eat, to the life-changing, such as whether to get married and to whom, what job to take and how to bring up our children.
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