Have you ever agonized over a decision, mulling over the risks of each choice and the benefits? Do recall that feeling of uncertainty beforehand, but then noticed that it went away after you finally made up your mind?
After spending time and energy to make the decision, we are relieved to be committed to the choice we settled upon. We will actually go from a place of uncertainty to another where we are confident in our ability to have made the right choice. We are wired to feel better about it afterwards and our mind relaxes once the effort of concentrated thinking is past.
Let’s say you are shopping for a car and you are looking at a number of different makes and models in your price range. You visit a couple of car dealerships and compare. You agonize over the differences of price and the options, determined to make a good decision and not be swayed by the salesperson’s persuasion. It is a tough decision, right? You sleep on it since you want to take more time before laying down your hard earned money.
The next morning you pick one and make the deal. You proudly drive that car off the lot, feeling great that you made the right choice. You will even go so far to champion your choice and recommend others to buy the same one. You don’t want to feel foolish in your choice and will even overlook those flaws you spend hours considering the day before. Our minds want to be happy with our decision and want to avoid the negative feelings of regret. No one wants to consider that they might have made a mistake.
You can see similar thinking at a horse track, where the bettors will deliberate on the horses they will place money upon. But within moments after committing their money, they are confident they made the right bet. Yet nothing changed. It is the same horse, same track, and the same field in the competition. But in their mind, their chances of winning improved compared to the second or third choices they considered.
Consider this situation (see the picture above). A rooster is sitting on the peak of a barn with the wind blowing 10 mph towards the East. If it lays an egg, which way will the egg roll off the barn? Did you pick to the right or left? I know some of you are logically saying “right” because the wind would put some force upon the egg to tip it off the peak in that direction. Some of you might even feel strongly enough to bet money on your answer. However, you would be wrong. There would be no egg at all because roosters do not lay eggs.
Taking this knowledge from the simple brain teaser into complex problems, we can see how our mind wants to commit to the decision after it is made. But when looking at problem solving (see previous post for the Problem Solving Loop), exercising critical thinking to evaluate the decision or course of action is necessary. Understanding that humility is also helpful to overcome that tendency towards commitment will allow one to break through and objectively analyze the decision and the results.
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