Next time you need to make a complicated decision – stop thinking.

[crispini]

Absolutely fascinating study about how people make decisions:

Difficult decisions are best left to our unconscious minds. In fact, a new study shows that thinking too hard about a problem could lead to poor choices and expensive errors. The unconscious mind, on the other hand, seems much better-suited to weighing the options and making the optimal decision.

Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren, and van Baaren (2005) investigated people making simple and complex decisions regarding items such as cars, furniture, shampoos, oven mitts and other items. Participants were provided with information and then asked to make a purchase decision.

(snip)

But for decisions on more complex items, such as a house, users who engaged in too much conscious deliberation made incorrect choices. However, participants whose conscious minds were pre-occupied with the puzzles before deciding made better decisions. Their unconscious was free to consider all the information and make the right choice.

See the whole article here:

http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/jan07.asp

[rock]

1. Unless I stop thinking

that sounds like a bad idea to me.

[AnneD]

2. I think the example...

of Bush II nullifies the study.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Yeah,

I've done this and found my intution doesn't let me down.

[BOSSHOG]

4. Often overthinking and second guessing is involved

Relative to a home purchase, often two spouses are involved thus multiplying the second guessing. The "stop thinking" is good advice. Stop piling up. Stop rationalizing the rights and wrongs and maybes of a and b and c.

[crispini]

5. It kind of goes with "go with your gut," doesn't it?

It's weird how if you'll just listen to your gut, it tells you what "feels" right and what doesn't. It's easy to ignore that 'cause it sure isn't rational.

[pitohui]

6. we see how well "go w. your gut" worked in iraq

this type of claim is part and parcel of our american hatred of the intellect and the brain

we are constantly being hammered on that we shouldn't think, shouldn't compare, shouldn't study, we should just gut it out and go with our intuition

a very convenient message for an advertising-based corporate society to send

people who don't think and who don't analyze will buy and choose what is put in their brains by the most skilled advertisers

[crispini]

10. Isn't it interesting, though, that the original study is a scientific study?

I see a lot of people in this thread who are "going with their gut," in that they are leaping to denounce the original article without even, I am guessing, clicking through to the linked article or to the associated scientific study it cites. Ha!

I haven't been able to find the entire original paper for free, but here is the extract, from Science Magazine

On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect
Ap Dijksterhuis,* Maarten W. Bos, Loran F. Nordgren, Rick B. van Baaren

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not always advantageous to engage in thorough conscious deliberation before choosing. On the basis of recent insights into the characteristics of conscious and unconscious thought, we tested the hypothesis that simple choices (such as between different towels or different sets of oven mitts) indeed produce better results after conscious thought, but that choices in complex matters (such as between different houses or different cars) should be left to unconscious thought. Named the "deliberation-without-attention" hypothesis, it was confirmed in four studies on consumer choice, both in the laboratory as well as among actual shoppers, that purchases of complex products were viewed more favorably when decisions had been made in the absence of attentive deliberation.

Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5763/1005

[BOSSHOG]

7. We made a few, but significant changes

to the blueprints of our home which we built eight years ago. Boom, change here, boom, change there. No overthinking, no second guessing. Fortunately we were happy with the changes we made, just wish we had made a few more. I do that overthinking when I'm writing. Totally hose the original product by intentionally making it difficult. Never fails. Back in my old TV reporting days I could whip out a two minute story with audio and video in a snap (as long as I didn't start gratuitously editing for no apparent reason.)

[xchrom]

8. very interesting.

i often about myself that i don't listen to my inner voices -- and no, not the ones you see blanket people on the street talking to .

although with blue tooth -- it's getting really hard to tell who's who.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

9. Zen and the art of buying a house

The Buddhists knew this centuries ago.

[iverglas]

11. a possible serendipitous connection

I just ran across this today when investigating something completely else.

http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/maner/Maner%20et%20al%20anxiety%20and%20risk%20PAID.pdf

Dispositional Anxiety and Risk-Avoidant Decision-Making

Abstract

Three studies investigated the link between dispositional anxiety and the tendency to engage in risk-avoidant decision-making. Findings suggest that dispositional anxiety is associated with a pronounced bias toward making risk-avoidant choices. Individual differences in trait anxiety, worry, and social anxiety were each associated with risk-avoidance on a behavioral risk-taking task (Studies 1 and 2). Compared with other clinical patients (e.g., mood disorders) and non-clinical controls, anxiety disordered patients exhibited substantially greater risk-aversion (Study 3). Findings suggest that the relationship with risk-avoidance is specific to anxiety, and is not merely concomitant to the experience of negative affect. This research has implications for understanding the links between individual differences in affective processing and basic decision-making processes.

My hypothesis? The anxiety associated with making a decision that involves significant risk is reduced by distracting one's self from the decision -- in the process cited in the article, by doing the puzzles.

I have an anxiety disorder (ptsd; and I am extremely risk-avoidant), and I find this in real life. If I focus on problem that involves my having to take some action where there is risk to me, I can't deal with it well. If I distract myself (like hanging out here for a while ...), I am eventually able to do it. It looks like procrastination, but it's a coping mechanism.

I'd guess that even for people without all the free-floating anxiety, the anxiety associated with deciding between potentially risky courses of action interferes in the decision-making, and the distraction reduces the extent to which the anxiety interferes in judgment.

[crispini]

12. Yes, sometimes it's hard just to make a decision.

In the context of the original article, around buying things, I must confess to a certain amount of anxiety as far as feeling things like, "I don't want to spend too much," "I want to make sure I'm going to get all the features I want," "I want to make an informed decision," etc.

This kind of thing caused me to take three weeks to buy a fridge -- and I was without one at the time! :rofl: I did a lot of eating out.

Interestingly enough, though, I decided to try the opposite approach when I wanted a digital camera. I just decided I wanted one, strolled into Target, and bought one that I liked. The decision took about 20 minutes to make. And, so far I haven't regretted it. :D

[iverglas]

13. haha

I've been thinking of buying a fridge for a year now ... (The present one dates from 1987 and is getting a little shabby, but most importantly is very energy inefficient.) Trips to Sears, perusing of catalogues on and off line ...

But in September I decided I wanted a digital camera and next day we walked into Business Depot and chatted for a while with the friendly HP saleswoman who was hanging around the cameras -- yup, about 20 minutes -- and I laid out 400 bucks for a digital camera.

Great minds?


(typo fixed)

[crispini]

14. Ha, that's very funny it's the same two things.

Small world! Or something. ;)