How to Avoid Making Foolish Decisions

I like riddles.  At work on some Fridays, one coworker will pass out a pair of riddles to the team, and we’ll all race to solve them the quickest.  It’s not Friday, but I wanted to start out this post with a couple of riddles.  When researchers put these three problems to 3400 students in the US, only 17 percent answered all three correctly.

1) A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

2) If it takes five machines 5 minutes to make five widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?

3) In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of it?

[For answers, click through]

Answers: 1) 5 cents, 2) 5 minutes, 3) 47 days

Source: Shane Frederick, 2005

 

In this article, Michael Bond from New Scientist discusses why and how people make decisions, and why they’re often such bad ones.  These riddles above, he posits, are not just games.  Rather, we encounter similar situations every day that engage our problem-solving faculty, in the workplace and at home.  Understanding how we make decisions and why we come to the conclusions we do can help us, as problem-solvers, make better decisions when we encounter real-life riddles.

By looking at how we measure intelligence, and what an IQ score actually means, Bond provides insight into the human capacity to analyze information and come to a conclusion.  Of course, no article on intelligence is complete without some sort of jibe at Bush’s intelligence; according to Bond, Bush has an estimated IQ of over 120, but, because of the factors Bond discusses in the article, Bush is still really, really bad at making decisions.

After a thorough analysis of decision-making, Bond leaves us with some tips on how to avoid making foolish decisions.

How to avoid making foolish decisions

It’s easy for your mind to lead you up the garden path when it comes to making a good decision. Below are ways to avoid the common pitfalls.

1. CLEAR YOUR MIND. Judgements can often be based on a piece of information you have recently had in mind, even if it is irrelevant. For example, bidding high at an auction after pondering the height of the tallest person in the room.
2. DON’T FALL FOUL OF SPIN. We have an inclination to be strongly influenced by the way a problem is framed. For instance, people are more likely to spend a monetary award immediately if they are told it is a bonus, compared with a rebate.
3. DON’T LET EMOTIONS GET IN THE WAY. They often interfere with our assessment of risk. One example is our natural reluctance to cut our losses on a falling investment because it might start rising again.
4. BE FACT BASED. Don’t allow your beliefs and opinions to cloud your analysis.
5. THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT THE LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES. When considering how a course of action will make you feel, talk to someone who has been through a similar situation rather than try to imagine your future state of mind; run mental movies about how an option might play out.
6. LOOK BEYOND THE OBVIOUS SOLUTION. Don’t accept the first thing that pops into your head.

 The article is long, but worth a skim, if for no other reason than the clever riddles.