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My experiment with my son will be to take advantage of lack of understanding of false dichotomy. Allow him to choose from preselected options with controlled ou

My experiment with my son will be to take advantage of lack of understanding of false dichotomy. Allow him to choose from preselected options with controlled outcomes. Then hold him accountable for that choice, whatever it means. I base this on the idea that decision making is a skill, and you build skills by practicing. Well, not necessarily decision making itself, but rather the mental constructs that surround decisions -- weighing alternatives, short- vs long-term planning, etc. Hopefully, then, when he starts coming up with his own options and breaking the false dichotomy, they'll be well-considered.

softawre 9y ago
Like a variation on the marshmallow experiment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
- laumars 9y ago
  We do this all the time with our kids. eg Halloween: you can eat <large percentage> your sweets now but we will eat the rest when you've gone to bed, or you can have <smaller percentage> now but have some left for tomorrow and the rest of the week. Our eldest (he's 4 now but we've been doing it for a couple of years) responds really well to that. In fact a 100% pass rate so far. Which is unusual for a boy of that age from what I've read.
jdietrich 9y ago
This works on adults too, as it happens. People are most satisfied when they're offered a relatively small number of choices. If you offer them no choice at all, they're generally dissatisfied because they feel a lesser sense of ownership and assume that there's probably a better option that they weren't offered. If you offer them too much choice, the perceptual costs of processing alternatives skyrockets and there's far greater opportunity for post-choice introspection and buyer's remorse. Easy, inconsequential choices can significantly improve satisfaction in many contexts. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/18ec/2947a5358610a2215412f310b507865ad455.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/18ec/2947a5358610a2215412f3...

softawre 9y ago

Like a variation on the marshmallow experiment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...

laumars 9y ago
We do this all the time with our kids. eg Halloween: you can eat <large percentage> your sweets now but we will eat the rest when you've gone to bed, or you can have <smaller percentage> now but have some left for tomorrow and the rest of the week. Our eldest (he's 4 now but we've been doing it for a couple of years) responds really well to that. In fact a 100% pass rate so far. Which is unusual for a boy of that age from what I've read.

jdietrich 9y ago

This works on adults too, as it happens. People are most satisfied when they're offered a relatively small number of choices. If you offer them no choice at all, they're generally dissatisfied because they feel a lesser sense of ownership and assume that there's probably a better option that they weren't offered. If you offer them too much choice, the perceptual costs of processing alternatives skyrockets and there's far greater opportunity for post-choice introspection and buyer's remorse. Easy, inconsequential choices can significantly improve satisfaction in many contexts. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/18ec/2947a5358610a2215412f310b507865ad455.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/18ec/2947a5358610a2215412f3...