Decision-Making
The Role of Experience in Decisions
Ever find yourself fretting over the results of a decision, which with hindsight was the wrong one? Well fret not, cognitive scientists have been investigating common missteps in the decision making process for decades and providing interesting insights. This field of research has become divided into two main areas; decision errors associated with thinking too little or too much. Whether these errors are a reflection of the actual neurological correlates underlying the decision-making process is unknown, but this division does seem to represent differences in cognitive processes. However, Ariely and Norton (2011) argue that this distinction may be less a reflection of cognitive divisions than an artifact of research study design, and that a continuum of decision-making may be a more accurate intellectual framework for understanding these findings.
The Role of Experience
Ariely and...
They first discuss findings from research investigating 'thinking too little', which has exposed errors predominantly related to acting out of habit. Habitual decisions are then broken down into two categories, habits that perpetuate negative outcomes, such as mindless eating when watching television, and habits that have lost their meaning over time, such as continuing to drive miles out of the way to purchase gasoline where it used to be cheaper.
Second, they discuss research findings that reveal under what conditions 'thinking too much' may produce a negative outcome (Ariely and Norton, 2011). Examples include being faced with so many parameters that accurate weighting of the contributing factors is undermined, or even to the point of becoming paralyzed. Bad choices can also be made if a person feels the need to justify a choice. In addition, someone can become so involved in the…
