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The irrationality presumes: 1. That the decision-making activity itself is wasteful. 2. That the decision-making time would, if not consumed by decision making
by julienb_sea 4y ago
The irrationality presumes:
1. That the decision-making activity itself is wasteful.
2. That the decision-making time would, if not consumed by decision making, be spent elsewhere in a more productive manner.
These are hardly safe assumptions. The discussion itself can be enjoyable. The faster decision making can create less certainty in the decision and encourage regret, or create conflict with others. The time gained may not be spent in any productive manner but instead be wasted elsewhere.
- pca006132 4y agoYeah, but slower decision making may also create conflict with others. For my career choice, I struggled to decide for a very long time, and switched decision after knowing additional information (salary raise, scholarship), which drived some people mad. I'm not sure which decision is better, considering they are so different and probably are not comparable. I just chose to do a postgraduate degree that seems more interesting, and leaves me more options later, rather than going to the industry which can make more money.
- Beldin 4y agoNote that your situation does not match the ones of the blog post. The article discusses several easily comparable options with clear valuation to the subject. Your situation describes a choice with incomplete information between two alternatives. To dive into your setting: one challenge is that there are multiple optimisation strategies. Do you want to avoid risk as much as possible? Do you want the largest possible income? The highest job satisfaction? The best career path? Etc. Note that even if you pick one of these as your sole optimisation factor, the choice is not clear. Eg. an industry position can make more money... or you have not-great luck, a string of mediocre jobs with little career growth and little payout. Or even bad luck and end up in jobs where you're a bad fit, learning nothing of career value to you and burning out repeatedly. On top of that, any advice from experience would be tainted by survivor bias and its inverse; that is, "i liked the outcome, so do that" / "i hated that outcome, so don't do that". Lastly, it isn't even clear (not can it ever be determined) that the downsides of choice paralysis are worse than the downsides of making the "lesser" choice. Maybe driving people this mad beats having to live in their couch for 6 months. Or maybe it doesn't. In the end, your alternatives present a very complex scenario, in which no alternative can be fully explored without committing to it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cal85 4y agoYeah, weird not to see any mention of time pressure. If you’re sitting in some psychology student’s lab and you know you’ve already agreed to participate in their coursework experiment for the next hour, you might spend a few minutes carefully choosing between two very close options. If you’re in a real life situation where you are presented with two very close options, and you need to get home in time for dinner, you are more likely to just decide at random.
- fleddr 4y agoYour point is literally made in the article: "Sometimes the decision-making process itself is pleasurable. Even if all outcomes will be equally rewarding, spending time discussing options with others or privately mulling them over might be satisfying."