- Sep 2022
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I've recently run across a few examples of a pattern that should have a name because it would appear to dramatically change the outcomes. I'm going to term it "decisions based on possibilities rather than realities". It's seen frequently in economics and politics and seems to be a form of cognitive bias. People make choices (or votes) about uncertain futures, often when there is a confluence of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and these choices are dramatically different than when they're presented with the actual circumstances in practice.
A recent example was a story about a woman who was virulently pro-life who when presented with a situation required her to switch her position to pro-choice.
Another relates to choices that people want to make about where their children might go to school versus where they actually send them, and the damage this does to public education.
Let's start collecting examples of these quandaries at all levels of making choices in the real world.
What is the relationship to this with the mental exercise of "descending into the particular"?
Does this also potentially cause decision fatigue in cases of voting spaces when constituents are forced to vote for candidates on thousands of axes which they may or may not agree with?
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- Jun 2022
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Local file Local file
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By dropping or reducing or postponing the least importantparts, we can unblock ourselves and move forward even when timeis scarce.
When working on a project, to stave off potential procrastination on finishing, one should focus on the minimum viable version and finish that. They can then progressively enhance portions and add on addition pieces which may be beneficial or even nice to have.
Spending too much time on the things that sound nice or that one "might want to have" in the future will be the death of the thing.
link to: - you ain't gonna need it - bikeshedding for procrastination
questions: - Does the misinterpreted-effort hypothesis play a role in creating our procrastination and/or lead to decision fatigue?
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- Feb 2022
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Even though results of these studies are currently under intensescrutiny and have to be taken with a grain of salt (Carter andMcCullough 2014; Engber and Cauterucci 2016; Job, Dweck andWalton 2010), it is safe to argue that a reliable and standardisedworking environment is less taxing on our attention, concentration
and willpower, or, if you like, ego. It is well known that decision-making is one of the most tiring and wearying tasks...
Having a standardized and reliable working environment or even workflow can be less taxing on our attention, our concentration, and our willpower leaving more energy for making decisions and thinking which can have a greater impact.
Does the fact that the relative lack of any decision making about what to see or read next seen in doomscrolling underlie some of the easily formed habit of the attention economy? Not having to actively decide what to read next combined with the random rewards of interesting tidbits creating a sense of flow is sapping not our mental energy, but our time. How can we better design against this?
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- Sep 2020
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Local file Local file
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This also informs how you should structure the decisions your stakeholders need to make. Say you have three things you need them to sign off on. If at all possible, put the most important (or riskiest) one first. The more decisions they have to make, the more conservative their decisions will get.
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If you have to get sign-off on something that might seem like a risk, think about scheduling that meeting for right after the stakeholders have had a nice meal.
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Decision fatigue describes a phenomenon where giving any real thought to a decision takes up energy.
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- Aug 2020
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behavioralscientist.org behavioralscientist.org
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Why a Group of Behavioural Scientists Penned an Open Letter to the U.K. Government Questioning Its Coronavirus Response. (2020, March 16). Behavioral Scientist. https://behavioralscientist.org/why-a-group-of-behavioural-scientists-penned-an-open-letter-to-the-uk-government-questioning-its-coronavirus-response-covid-19-social-distancing/
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www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
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r/BehSciAsk—What’s so wrong with ‘behavioural fatigue’? (n.d.). Reddit. Retrieved 12 August 2020, from https://www.reddit.com/r/BehSciAsk/comments/i88yi5/whats_so_wrong_with_behavioural_fatigue/
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- Jun 2020
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psyarxiv.com psyarxiv.com
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Baer, T., & Schnall, S. (2020). Quantifying the Cost of Decision Fatigue: Supoptimal Risk Decisions in Finance [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/j4wef
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