Decision Making, part 1
a pre-Kahneman book point of view
As a life-long fence inhabitant, when it comes to decision making, I was pleasantly surprised to find a helpful set of videos dedicated to this topic, targeted at mid to high school teenagers and their parents. Apart from the worthy content and production quality, they were in Russian which was indeed remarkable. There was neither pitching of dubious ideas or practices, nor sales attempts whereas so many “unique guru’s insights” or just generally self-help people generated content often has. And as I have still not read Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, as well as many other worthy books in the field, I decided to take a shot at the videos. Them being short and the material given in bite sized chunks were of help too. So here is my take plus sort of a transcript, translated and filtered a bit.
They begin by stating that uncertainty is scary in general and change brings more of it, thus worsening the situation. The decision making might also be a harbinger of change and it too makes us uneasy and apprehensive. And this is at the basis of our aversion of decision making, as we tend to prefer the status quo (check out status quo bias and omission bias). However, life does not work like that and we are forced to decide one way or the other, and even when we do not actually do anything in consequence it was still a decision not to act.
Moving towards a big goal is rarely about the happiness in the moment and it requires a lot of energy. The brain prefers to conserve as much of it as possible and undermines us on the way forward by alluring the conscience with pleasure now, positively contrasted to a potential of it somewhere far away.
Next they proceed to a widespread in children, but common enough in adults, way of thinking where “my mom said”, “my friend told me to”, “this dude on YouTube/ in pub/at work” as a way of wriggling out and taking off the responsibility from oneself for whatever. What we don’t like to see is that even here a decision was made by an individual to follow whatever advice, hint or order received, but we prefer to twist the narrative a bit to feel better about ourselves and push the truth under the rug of excuses. So there is always a choice, one just might not like it, but it does not remove the possibilities as well as the consequences. It is preferable to choose and make a decision than continue to ponder and bask in doubt. Apart from moving on with one’s life, making important decisions, and creating and acting on long-term plans, learning more about decision making helps to better understand and accept oneself in the moment.
In general, when person speaks of decision making, they are referring to conscious process, however there is much more to it than that with quite a lot being outside of the scope of this video series. The brain anatomy and function related to the topic are given in an oversimplified manner (see Triune brain) but this model is widely used due to it’s simplicity and being on the whole good enough as an approximation. Three main parts of brain that we have are:
- lizard brain — oldest part that is essential in keeping us alive (controls heart rate, breathing, etc.)
- mammalian brain — the limbic system, which is the place of emotions, motivation, memories and olfaction
- neocortex which is responsible for cognition and rational decision making
When we encounter an uncertain situation that calls for something to be done, the above mentioned regions engage in a three-way tug of war which is not helpful and often leads us to taking easy way instead of the right one. Thus, in order to progress and succeed, we’ll need some assistance.
In order to help us with binary decision there is a Cartesian coordinate system, or more correctly a modification of it. The horizontal axis will represent the decision and the vertical one the consequences, and their intersection gives us four quadrants to fill with details. The main purpose here is to make as much as possible as explicit as possible. It is easier to make a weighed and well-thought choice as you can see every relevant detail together at once. See below for the frame set up and one example.
Now what would be the difference between a dream and a goal? Dream is a desire that does not require any action, while a goal is a well stated objective that in turn inevitably brings on some or other activity. Compare “I want to have a smartphone” vs. “I want to buy a smartphone before New Year” with the former sounding as a fancy, a wish and the latter more of an undertaking with a few steps right of the bat and a deadline to boot. And one of the important parts of the successful long-term planning is the proper setting up of the goal. There are many models for that and here we’re presented with the SMART criteria, with S for Specific, M for Measurable, A for Achievable, R for Relevant, T for Time-bound. In light of this model we can see that “I want to buy a smartphone before New Year” already has most of the criteria (it is measurable as if achieved we’ll have the phone, it is relevant provided we still need a phone, and time-bound as we’d like to buy it before New Year), we’ll have to specify further the type of smartphone, and check if our finances be able to bear such an expenditure.
As we go through life we’d form all sorts of plans and tasks, and they could be divided into short-term and long-term ones. The short-term goals are easier to navigate and fulfill for obvious reasons, but what if your target is huge and/or requires months or even years? How does one keep on top of things, when the horizon is nowhere near to be seen? Here we’re recommended to try out Gantt’s chart, which is a bar chart used to visualize projects and their schedules. The timeline is represented by horizontal axis and sub-tasks are in the vertical one. There are a few open source variants to try out, also check out Wikipedia page dedicated to it for more info. It’s worth noting that this type of visualization is not the one and only way to help with project scheduling, and it’s better to use whatever works best for you (roadmap, for instance) as the main purpose of this is to plan first and to keep an eye on a big picture later while assessing and re-assessing the progress on the big scale with appropriate adjustments with time as well.
Let’s say you’ve planned it all out clear and straightforward, but as we are far from rational and logical by nature our brains may intervene in unhelpful ways at any moment. We’ve evolved telling stories by the fire and not necessarily to divide the atom and land on Mars. There are many quirks in our mental processes that might be leading us astray or derail altogether. Rational cognition is an expensive exercise and we’d rather chill under the tree or on couch instead or at least cut as many corners as possible in reasoning. It is worth the time and effort to know in which ways we know we deceive ourselves so go in and check out the list of cognitive biases sometime. There are a few of the most common ones related to decision making, planning and keeping at your established objectives mentioned in the videos:
- if I understand something, then I can do it (as in “I read a book on bass guitar so now I can play it”)
- my willpower is enough and I won’t succumb to temptation (oh yes, you will)
- today is a special day (as in “ a special day that will change my life entirely”, or “a special day so I can slack off”; being methodical, disciplined even if only progressing by tiny steps, is much more preferable and brings results)
- well, at least I am better than X (with X most often being rather so-so) which leads to premature “that will do or it will be baked somehow”
- I do not need help or a system (lists, checklists, timetable etc.; even though system use had been proven time and again to be extremely helpful)
- I still have a lot of time (we all have used this one at least once)
- I won’t get distracted and nothing unusual will happen (randomness, dude! we tend to misunderstand and vastly underestimate it’s impact on our lives; check out Leonard Mlodinow’s “The Drunkard’s Walk” for more info on that)
- my efforts will be appreciated (external appraisal and appreciation are fine and very pleasant to receive, but do not attach too much of your self worth to opinions of someone else and do not take said opinion as a goal)
- no one cares about me/notices me or alternatively everyone is watching and giving me scores (most of us do not pay that much of attention to others and are at the center of our own private universes)
- if I change, I won’t be myself anymore (this one is a bit silly, but understandable as we change constantly little by little unbeknownst to ourselves, some of us in slow and steady way, others in more of a jumpy manner, so trying to avoid change is futile, all the while one might achieve so much with deliberate and thoughtful change)
Up next: how mathematics helps us (again!), how to keep on track.
