Can We Predict Our Decisions?

Some loose research by Griffin and Tversky (Overcoming Bias) suggest that we can predict what choice we will make with about 96% accuracy. It’s based on people facing a decision about a job opportunity and predicting what they will choose.

There are some problems with this. Mainly that you may be fairly sure of your choice before you make the decision, and so of course you are accurate when asked to predict what you will choose. For choices for which you are truly conflicted, I think the rate of success may be lower.

Yet it still highlights that we make decisions unconsciously very quickly, and the rest of the rationalization process is unlikely to cause us to change our choice.

If decision making techniques don’t really work and we are predictable enough that we can predict our own decision, perhaps the best decision making technique of all is to imagine our future after the decision and try to predict which decision we will make (I know there are problems here, bear with me).

Sounds easy right?

In some cases it is. I’m trying to restrict my chai drinking to one time a week, but will I get some tomorrow? I’m betting yes. Will I sleep in instead of getting up early? Almost certainly.

But will I choose to go to the Peace Corps next summer? That one is much harder. If I had to bet…I’d say I will go, but if you asked me again in an hour, that might change.

Still…there is something to be said for decisive action based on first impressions. Great military leaders are almost always described as being very decisive.

For those of us in less immediate situations, a greater reliance on our first choice may still be a better process than being mired in doubt.

Something like Inkling Markets could be used to set up a prediction market for your actions…it’s not to far off from what I’ve been trying to create myself.

-zot