How do we really make decisions?

With every decision you take, every judgement you make, there is a battle in your mind – a battle between intuition and logic.

And the intuitive part of your mind is a lot more powerful than you may think.

Most of us like to think that we are capable of making rational decisions. We may at times rely on our gut instinct, but if necessary we can call on our powers of reason to arrive at a logical decision.

more…

I wonder if further down, chemicals and proteins etc are involved?

that would be an exciting find.

CrazyNeutrino said:

I wonder if further down, chemicals and proteins etc are involved?

that would be an exciting find.

?

Is there any doubt about that?

I mean certain images on the back of the eyeball have immediate physical effects in various parts of the body, in which chemicals are presumably involved, and these effects may well affect our decisions on certain things.

CrazyNeutrino said:

How do we really make decisions?

With every decision you take, every judgement you make, there is a battle in your mind – a battle between intuition and logic.

And the intuitive part of your mind is a lot more powerful than you may think.

Most of us like to think that we are capable of making rational decisions. We may at times rely on our gut instinct, but if necessary we can call on our powers of reason to arrive at a logical decision.

more…

Good link btw :)

>But if I offer you half a box of chocolates right now, or a whole box of chocolates tomorrow, you will most likely take half a box of chocolates now. It’s the same difference, but waiting an extra day in a year’s time seems insignificant. Waiting a day now seems impossible when faced with the immediate promise of chocolate.

Or, we might just be trying to lose weight, and rationally conclude that half a box of chocolates is therefore preferable.

Bubblecar said:

>But if I offer you half a box of chocolates right now, or a whole box of chocolates tomorrow, you will most likely take half a box of chocolates now. It’s the same difference, but waiting an extra day in a year’s time seems insignificant. Waiting a day now seems impossible when faced with the immediate promise of chocolate.

Or, we might just be trying to lose weight, and rationally conclude that half a box of chocolates is therefore preferable.

Maybe you don’t want to be seen as the kind of person who’d go to the trouble of coming back the next day just to get a bit more chocolate.

too much choice confuses us as humans. How many times do you go into an ice-cream shop with 31 flavours and say “I don’t know what to choose”

in marketing we are told to not offer a choice but make it seem like you are.

I want you to take the half a box of chocolates off my hands today

OTOH, I have 16 varieties of doughnuts and people often ask, “Is this all you have?”

do they ever buy all sixteen varieties? (just for themselves)

Divine Angel said:

OTOH, I have 16 varieties of doughnuts and people often ask, “Is this all you have?”

I hope you say, “No, there are several other kinds but we keep them in the ladies toilet.”

BTW Martin Lindstrom has two fantastic books called Buyology and Brandwashed which are about the consumer decisions we think we make, but the companies are making for us.

Bubblecar said:

Divine Angel said:

OTOH, I have 16 varieties of doughnuts and people often ask, “Is this all you have?”

I hope you say, “No, there are several other kinds but we keep them in the ladies toilet.”

Just like when I sell out of a flavour and people ask if I have any more, I say, “Well yes, we keep them for people who hop on one leg and say the magic password while humming the national anthem.” The doughnuts trolleys are clearly visible from where they stand, if the trolleys are empty then where am I going to be hiding things?

Divine Angel said:

BTW Martin Lindstrom has two fantastic books called Buyology and Brandwashed which are about the consumer decisions we think we make, but the companies are making for us.

yes.. I think that’s the basis of the marketing course i did a while ago.

Basically you offer two ridiculous choices to lead them to the third choice you want to them make … I’ve even heard people go so far as to say “If the consumer chooses the most expensive package, you need to put that price up”

Divine Angel said:

Bubblecar said:

Divine Angel said:

OTOH, I have 16 varieties of doughnuts and people often ask, “Is this all you have?”

I hope you say, “No, there are several other kinds but we keep them in the ladies toilet.”

Just like when I sell out of a flavour and people ask if I have any more, I say, “Well yes, we keep them for people who hop on one leg and say the magic password while humming the national anthem.” The doughnuts trolleys are clearly visible from where they stand, if the trolleys are empty then where am I going to be hiding things?

like Bakers Delight… but people think you have a stash ‘out back’ ;)

Arts said:

do they ever buy all sixteen varieties? (just for themselves)

Saw it done in a cake shop in Amsterdam.
They had over 80 types of little cake things & this English tourist couldn’t decide what he wanted so he said “Fook it, I’ll ‘ave a coople of each”

Yea, all the good drugs are stashed at my place.

Arts said:

Divine Angel said:

Bubblecar said:

I hope you say, “No, there are several other kinds but we keep them in the ladies toilet.”

Just like when I sell out of a flavour and people ask if I have any more, I say, “Well yes, we keep them for people who hop on one leg and say the magic password while humming the national anthem.” The doughnuts trolleys are clearly visible from where they stand, if the trolleys are empty then where am I going to be hiding things?

like Bakers Delight… but people think you have a stash ‘out back’ ;)

Well, sometimes there is a fresh batch just out of the oven which will be ready in 10 minutes.

“Fook it, I’ll ‘ave a coople of each”

probably just come out one of “those” type of cafe.

That was the bane of the deli. You’d sell out of something and people always asked if you had it “out the back” and then thought you were lying when you said no.

poikilotherm said:

Yea, all the good drugs are stashed at my place.

I suspected as much.. all you medical types love to hold out on us..

Tamb said:

Arts said:

Divine Angel said:

Just like when I sell out of a flavour and people ask if I have any more, I say, “Well yes, we keep them for people who hop on one leg and say the magic password while humming the national anthem.” The doughnuts trolleys are clearly visible from where they stand, if the trolleys are empty then where am I going to be hiding things?

like Bakers Delight… but people think you have a stash ‘out back’ ;)

Well, sometimes there is a fresh batch just out of the oven which will be ready in 10 minutes.

d they? I’ve never seen a BD bake past 10am

Divine Angel said:

That was the bane of the deli. You’d sell out of something and people always asked if you had it “out the back” and then thought you were lying when you said no.

Just tell them you do have them out the back, but they are reserved for the special customers.

JudgeMental said:

“Fook it, I’ll ‘ave a coople of each”

probably just come out one of “those” type of cafe.

Now that you mention it there was one just across the lane from the cake shop.

Divine Angel said:

That was the bane of the deli. You’d sell out of something and people always asked if you had it “out the back” and then thought you were lying when you said no.

Yeah, they’d come in and ask for Red Leicester or Danish Camembert and the like.

Arts said:

Tamb said:

Arts said:

like Bakers Delight… but people think you have a stash ‘out back’ ;)

Well, sometimes there is a fresh batch just out of the oven which will be ready in 10 minutes.

d they? I’ve never seen a BD bake past 10am

I was thinking about our local bakers. They do several batches of fresh cream cakes per day.

When you need to make a decision between two things and they both have positives and negatives a weighted matrix is useful, sometimes just asking the questions focuses the mind on what is the most desirable.

Sometimes they’d even come in and ask for Cheddar when they should know full well that we don’t get much call for it round these parts and if we do get it in it will come on the Friday afternoon delivery van.

never buy turkey from the deli counter…. that’s all I know… hey poik?

Heh.

Arts said:

never buy turkey from the deli counter…. that’s all I know… hey poik?

Or chicken schnitzel…

This seems appropriate for the thread:
Toilet training toys from tonight’s The Checkout.

LOL @ “portable poo esky”

Divine Angel said:

This seems appropriate for the thread:
Toilet training toys from tonight’s The Checkout.

LOL @ “portable poo esky”

wow.. it’s almost worth having another child for…

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26258662

article is a bit skewed, mixes something substantially true with something of another kind for affect.

best get this tired fanny out of the seat and go do a bit, feel about as motivated a Marvin today.

Arts said:

Divine Angel said:

BTW Martin Lindstrom has two fantastic books called Buyology and Brandwashed which are about the consumer decisions we think we make, but the companies are making for us.

yes.. I think that’s the basis of the marketing course i did a while ago.

Basically you offer two ridiculous choices to lead them to the third choice you want to them make … I’ve even heard people go so far as to say “If the consumer chooses the most expensive package, you need to put that price up”

This is not always a good idea – there were times when someone would want something designed, and I’d come up with something I thought was ideal. Just to make sure, I’d also do an extra one that was total crap, to let them think they had a choice….guess which one they’d inevitably go for?

Neophyte said:

Arts said:

Divine Angel said:

BTW Martin Lindstrom has two fantastic books called Buyology and Brandwashed which are about the consumer decisions we think we make, but the companies are making for us.

yes.. I think that’s the basis of the marketing course i did a while ago.

Basically you offer two ridiculous choices to lead them to the third choice you want to them make … I’ve even heard people go so far as to say “If the consumer chooses the most expensive package, you need to put that price up”

This is not always a good idea – there were times when someone would want something designed, and I’d come up with something I thought was ideal. Just to make sure, I’d also do an extra one that was total crap, to let them think they had a choice….guess which one they’d inevitably go for?

It’s not only in the consumer market. At meetings the same strategy can & is used all the time.

Tamb said:

Neophyte said:

Arts said:

yes.. I think that’s the basis of the marketing course i did a while ago.

Basically you offer two ridiculous choices to lead them to the third choice you want to them make … I’ve even heard people go so far as to say “If the consumer chooses the most expensive package, you need to put that price up”

This is not always a good idea – there were times when someone would want something designed, and I’d come up with something I thought was ideal. Just to make sure, I’d also do an extra one that was total crap, to let them think they had a choice….guess which one they’d inevitably go for?

It’s not only in the consumer market. At meetings the same strategy can & is used all the time.

Use it in healthcare too;

Would you like to
a) feel a little sick and fuzzy while taking this medicine that costs $40/month or
b) die prematurely
c) suffer a severe disabling medical event.

Whatever they choose, they’ll be back for more medication…

/Cynical day (maybe)

Neophyte said:

Arts said:

Divine Angel said:

BTW Martin Lindstrom has two fantastic books called Buyology and Brandwashed which are about the consumer decisions we think we make, but the companies are making for us.

yes.. I think that’s the basis of the marketing course i did a while ago.

Basically you offer two ridiculous choices to lead them to the third choice you want to them make … I’ve even heard people go so far as to say “If the consumer chooses the most expensive package, you need to put that price up”

This is not always a good idea – there were times when someone would want something designed, and I’d come up with something I thought was ideal. Just to make sure, I’d also do an extra one that was total crap, to let them think they had a choice….guess which one they’d inevitably go for?

.

My guess is the crap one, can’t remember who said “No one has ever gone broke under estimating the the lack of taste of the general public.

poikilotherm said:

Tamb said:

Neophyte said:

This is not always a good idea – there were times when someone would want something designed, and I’d come up with something I thought was ideal. Just to make sure, I’d also do an extra one that was total crap, to let them think they had a choice….guess which one they’d inevitably go for?

It’s not only in the consumer market. At meetings the same strategy can & is used all the time.

Use it in healthcare too;

Would you like to
a) feel a little sick and fuzzy while taking this medicine that costs $40/month or
b) die prematurely
c) suffer a severe disabling medical event.

Whatever they choose, they’ll be back for more medication…

/Cynical day (maybe)

derp. Not b…

poikilotherm said:

Tamb said:

Neophyte said:

This is not always a good idea – there were times when someone would want something designed, and I’d come up with something I thought was ideal. Just to make sure, I’d also do an extra one that was total crap, to let them think they had a choice….guess which one they’d inevitably go for?

It’s not only in the consumer market. At meetings the same strategy can & is used all the time.

Several episodes of Yes Minister featured this ploy
I modeled my business strategies on Sir Humphrey. :)
Use it in healthcare too;

Would you like to
a) feel a little sick and fuzzy while taking this medicine that costs $40/month or
b) die prematurely
c) suffer a severe disabling medical event.

Whatever they choose, they’ll be back for more medication…

/Cynical day (maybe)

…..article is in-large-part bullshit.

transition said:

…..article is in-large-part bullshit.

How did you decide that?

>How did you decide that?

Well, it sort of bags intuition, misrepresents it, for starters, when in practice the work of logical thinking can be commonly tended or motivated by intuition, and it’d be a quite narrow and impractical view of intuition to think it something less than the capacities endowed and inclined by lifetime experience, which of course is that of the lifetime experiences of the human organism importantly courtesy of what were passed on by ancestors (the potentials including of that biologically originated). So it does what rationalists etc (including some of the great philosophers have done), I mean to some extent it could be seen as an argument against human nature, but in truth it has been long known human minds have a tendency toward all sorts of biases, it (knowledge of and circumspection) are an aspect of developed human consciousness, not just personal biased but also generalized biases across the species that to some extent characterize the species, and by extension its human nature.

That’s just a start, also the article starts with a picture of a wad of cash, further it’s littered with ideologically appealing associations.

So it’s a trash article, doesn’t venture much at all really.

Additionally I am not sure that of intuition is so terribly invisible, or is the stuff of auto-pilot.

transition said:

>How did you decide that?

Well, it sort of bags intuition, misrepresents it, for starters, when in practice the work of logical thinking can be commonly tended or motivated by intuition, and it’d be a quite narrow and impractical view of intuition to think it something less than the capacities endowed and inclined by lifetime experience, which of course is that of the lifetime experiences of the human organism importantly courtesy of what were passed on by ancestors (the potentials including of that biologically originated). So it does what rationalists etc (including some of the great philosophers have done), I mean to some extent it could be seen as an argument against human nature, but in truth it has been long known human minds have a tendency toward all sorts of biases, it (knowledge of and circumspection) are an aspect of developed human consciousness, not just personal biased but also generalized biases across the species that to some extent characterize the species, and by extension its human nature.

That’s just a start, also the article starts with a picture of a wad of cash, further it’s littered with ideologically appealing associations.

So it’s a trash article, doesn’t venture much at all really.

Additionally I am not sure that of intuition is so terribly invisible, or is the stuff of auto-pilot.

OK, I’d better go and read it :)

I suspect I might agree with you, at least in part.

>when in practice the work of logical thinking can be commonly tended or motivated by intuition

True, we’re not likely to bother with disciplined rational thinking unless our gut feeling is that it’s called for.

> Most of us like to think that we are capable of making rational decisions.

I like the way that is phrased. I know some people who think that they are the only people capable of making rational decisions.

Me, I make decisions using analogy and extrapolation.

>I like the way that is phrased. I know some people who think that they are the only people capable of making rational decisions.

Perhaps related to that, I’ve been contemplating for a while how we extract from culture, you know sort of borrow from it, ‘take’ from it, and I’m sort of getting around to I suppose ‘selfish extraction’, sort of a variant of nature provides, more like ‘culture provides’, I mean if I take the idea (didn’t originate in my head) that culture is for the satisfaction of human nature (a view that appeals to me) and think about all and everything that is apparently turned on for consumers (even free stuff like Wiki too), anyway there’s something about the ‘extraction’ that bothers me (makes me think about it, my own ‘taking’ too).

What an individual builds self from, or the part/s provided. Differentiating ones own ‘work’ from that that is taken, even stolen in a sense.

I can’t easily resolve culture for the satisfaction of human nature and what I take. There’s some territory that really is my ‘own work’, and I’m happy that its modest, but what of me that makes me the I am that might be stolen. There appears to be no end to the work one can do regards this differentiating, if that’s what it is. I tend to have busy and possibly somewhat developed ideas-in-progress (a sort of tracking awareness) to do with the extent culture and social environments (authority too, state apparatus, ideological apparatus etc) ought determine reality. It’s not all tedious though because it tends me toward some really simple sort of running unconclusions regards self (and the world). Seems to work anyway.

mollwollfumble said:

I like the way that is phrased. I know some people who think that they are the only people capable of making rational decisions.

Yes, and they are very annoying to those of us who really are.