I have always thought that the ability to make good decisions, especially when time is short, is a very valuable life skill. Although it seems obvious that intelligent, well-educated people have many tools at hand to make good decisions, that is not always the case. History is full of catastrophic decisions made by smart people, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the decision to launch the Challenger.
Wändi Bruine de Bruin and her colleagues at Carnegie Mellon are reporting new evidence that intelligence is not the whole story. We already knew that various factors, such as the availability heuristic, can cloud our judgment. Most people are surprised to learn that their odds of being killed by a shark are far less than their odds of being killed by a dog.
De Bruin and her colleagues are trying to link general decision making skill to one’s success in making good life decisions, such as avoiding jail, not bouncing checks, holding a job, not getting drunk, and maintaining long-term relationships. Ideally, methods for teaching good decision making could emerge out of such research.
As a person who “studies” for a living, I typically apply a systematic, logical approach to decision making. Oddly enough, however, I find that some of the most important and happiest decisions I’ve made (marrying my high school sweetheart, buying houses) are those that I “think” about the least. In this respect, I find myself agreeing with none other than Sigmund Freud (with whom I rarely otherwise find common ground):
“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.”
If you want to try the Carnegie Mellon decision making test, a short version is available here. I am anxiously awaiting my results, although I thought this version would be easy to outguess due to the proximity of questions within the test that are “checks” of your logic. If you don’t perform too well, you might find some helpful pointers from Mind Tools.
3 Comments
LaurenBabek · May 25, 2007 at 4:08 pm
I’m bummed that there isn’t instant gratification for the results of the decision making test… but I guess that has to do with the decision I made to take it in the first place! To me, Freud’s words don’t seem to be anything revolutionary, however they do hold much truth. When we have time to compare the pros and cons of a situation before making a decision, then we definitely should. Nevertheless, I do feel that while some decisions are made best out of impulse and sheer gut instinct, I think it’s part of human nature to later weigh the pros and cons of that decision just because we are so used to doing for so many other instances in life. We like to see what we may have otherwise sacrificed for our final decision, because if our happiness out-weighs the cons, then again we have proven to ourselves that sometimes we need to ignore our minds and follow our hearts.
genevieve · June 4, 2007 at 9:54 pm
I took the test over a week ago and am still waiting on the results. I feel like I have pretty good reasoning skills, but the test might validate that a little. In regards to Freud’s quote, it makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary stand point. When making life and death decisions, they need to be made quickly to ensure survival. In these instances there is no time to weigh out the pros and cons. And many times, even if there is adequate time to consider the options, we know what the right decision is for us without having to put too much thought into it.
Laura Freberg · June 10, 2007 at 11:29 am
I finally got my results, and much to my surprise, I didn’t do very well (34th percentile). That’s sobering. I have always taken a bit of pride in the life decisions I’ve made (married happily 35 years, choice of career, big purchases and investments and so on). It makes me wonder how successfully this research has tapped into the type of decision making that can be generalized to “real” life.
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