Deprecated: Hook jetpack_pre_connection_prompt_helpers is deprecated since version jetpack-13.2.0 with no alternative available. in /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6078 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/functions.php:6078) in /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1831 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/functions.php:6078) in /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1831 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/functions.php:6078) in /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1831 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/functions.php:6078) in /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1831 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/functions.php:6078) in /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1831 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/functions.php:6078) in /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1831 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/functions.php:6078) in /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1831 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/functions.php:6078) in /hermes/bosnacweb04/bosnacweb04ay/b1602/nf.whysel/public_html/decisionfish.com/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1831 {"id":293,"date":"2015-12-01T16:08:17","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T21:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/decisionfish.com\/?p=293"},"modified":"2022-08-01T18:17:27","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T22:17:27","slug":"fuggedaboutit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decisionfish.com\/fuggedaboutit\/","title":{"rendered":"Got a Tough Decision? Fuggedaboutit!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve got a wickedly complex decision to make. What should my priorities be now that I no longer have a full-time banking job? I’ve got at least a dozen different alternatives, each with subtle-to-obvious differences with respect to my key values including impact on my family, benefit to society, intellectual challenge, financial security and leverage of my skills and experience. Am I more likely to make a wise decision by 1) deliberating carefully, say by performing a cost-benefit analysis of my options; 2) distracting myself with a video game and letting my unconscious figure it out or 3) just decide right away?<\/p>\n

According to Psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Nether\u00adlands, I should fire up the Space Invaders. In his seminal paper, Think Different: The Merits of Unconscious Thought in Preference Development and Decision Making<\/a>, he finds that the unconscious is better at solving complex problems that require sensitivity to subtleties among multiple factors to come to a global, integrated conclusion. This is called the unconscious thought advantage<\/strong> (UTA).<\/p>\n

When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature. — Sigmund Freud<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Dijksterhuis, the conscious mind can be woefully inadequate for hard problems like what to do for a living. It is limited to handling about seven<\/a> pieces of data at a time; people read at a rate of 45 bits per second. In contrast, the unconscious mind can process visual information at a rate of ten million bits per second.<\/b> If these were different computers, which would you rather work on your hard problem? His view is that the conscious mind might be better for simple and mundane decisions.<\/p>\n

Dijksterhuis ran five experiments<\/b> to test 1) whether having time to think unconsciously helps and 2) whether unconscious decisions were usually better than conscious ones. He had college students consider a complex decision among different rental apartments and different roommates. To create conditions for unconscious decision-making, he distracted his subjects with a difficult memory exercise. The results supported both hypotheses.<\/p>\n

It turns out there’s controversy<\/b> among cognitive psychologists over UTA. Harvard Business School found<\/a> that “sleeping on it” does not help you make better decisions. Further, Scientific American reported <\/a>on a meta analysis of sixty studies: only fifty percent of them found evidence for UTA. Dijksterhuis rejects the study’s conclusions, stating that “the evidence for UTA is growing quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n

While the jury is still out on the relative benefits of deciding with your unconscious, the research is tantalizing. Wouldn’t it be nice<\/b> if we could rely on an effortless unconscious process, that avoids our worst biases and most inadequate short-cuts (heuristics), to make our hardest decisions? In the meantime, I will still rely on my spreadsheets and other decisions tools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve got a wickedly complex decision to make. What should my priorities be now that I no longer have a full-time banking job? I’ve got at least a dozen different alternatives, each with subtle-to-obvious differences with respect to my key values including impact on my family, benefit to society, intellectual challenge, financial security and leverage of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2],"tags":[56,5,8,13,41,14,22,54,61],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nGot a Tough Decision? 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