TED - Irrational Decision-Making

Here is another great TED talk that asks the question: "Are we in control of our own decisions?"

The answer is NO! This could be applicable to our previous discussion of Empathy and the Court. This TED talk clearly demonstrates how our emotions and other non-rational factors control our decision-making much more strongly than reasonable logic.

For example, the person on the far left is "Tom" and the one on the far right is "Jerry". The figure in the top middle is a distorted version of "Jerry" to make him look ugly. The middle bottom is an ugly version of "Tom".

When presented with the top form, and asked who they would date, most picked good-looking Jerry. When shown the bottom form, they picked good-looking Tom. Amazingly, the ugly choice totally changed the results of the selection process!

The TED presenter, Dan Ariely, uses several other examples to show how our decision process may be totally altered by the presentation of undesirable, non-chosen alternatives.

HOW DOES THIS BEAR ON PROFESSIONAL DECISION-MAKING?

Well, if a decision is close between two alternatives, which is always the case for hard decisions in business (or the Supreme Court, where, by definition, cases are almost always close choices), a good strategy could be to introduce a slightly "ugly" version of the choice you want the deciders to make.

For example, a prosecutor could include the death penalty as an option, even if he or she thought a 20-year sentence is most appropriate. The "ugly" death penalty option would make it more likely the jurors would settle on a long sentence. Given a choice between 10 years and 20 years, they might pick 10. If the death penalty was added to the menu, they would be more likely to choose 20 years.

The other lesson I take from this TED talk is that professionals should adopt methodologies that, to the extent possible, exclude emotional factors. For example, my Decision tool "forces" the deciders to consider multiple factors and weights in reaching a decision.

Ira Glickstein

Rationality

I'm going to start a new post, because the old one is getting cumbersome being loaded with so many issues.

Howard brought up the question of rationality, non-rationality and irraationality and later Howard said: Ira is right that we can’t expect all of mankind to become rational after being indoctrinated with organized religions’ dogmas for so long. But why excuse or promote this inflexible irrationality?



I'm not comfortable with calling religion irrational. Let's start with the dictionary definition of rational. Mine says that rational means having reason or logic. It seems to me that for the most part religions are logical and have reasons for what they propose. Let's also stipulate that we're talking about religions with a personal god, i.e., a supernatural being having personhood or intention. Although you and I may believe no such being exists, that doesn't automatically make the religion irrational. I would contend that all thinking requires a leap of faith at some point. Euclid's geometry is held to be the ultimate in rational thinking, but it requires faith in certain axioms in order to get started. The Declaration of Independence rationally explains why the Framers believe they are correct to separate from England, but they require an intuitive assumption. "We hold these truths to be self evident.....) All reason is built upon assumption. One of the reasons we come to different conclusions about almost everything in this world is our intuitive assumptions. For example, almost everyone in today's America would agree by virtue of rational thought that it was wrong for Europeans to take this land from the indigenous people. However, many people of the nineteenth century would start their reasoning from the axiom that no people nor person can truly possess a piece of this planet. Possession does not come simply by being born in a place. What one possesses comes only from conquest and the constant defense against incursion by others. Thus with a different first assumption or axiom, one arrives perfectly rationally at two very different conclusions concerning the taking of land from the Indians (or anyone else).



As to the idea that religious indoctrination being virtually unassailable simply because of age, I have to differ. I don't think that the age of a tradition has anything to do with its survival. What counts is the number of people who currently believe in a tradition. When that number is beyond a critical value, the tradition is very difficult to overturn. I don't think the age is much of a factor except as a measure of durability. The traditional place of women in society was thousands of years old when it was overturned in a very short time. World War II, The Pill and the disappearance of the icebox contrived to make the old tradition obsolete. The survival of a tradition has more to do with its benefits and its adaptability. If a tradition cannot bend, it will break. Religion has shown itself valuable to the individual and society despite a changing environment and has been able to make small adaptations. To my mind, the most important adaptation in the survival of modern religion has been to look the other way when the membership sins. The "love the sinner, hate the sin" concept in modern Christianity is ingenious. It allows a member to attend church on Sunday and lie, cheat and steal on Monday with impunity. Hence, humans can remain members, pay their tithe and do whatever they wish without the condemnation of their peers. That's a lot of flexibility.



Let me finish with a short Wikipedia quotation concerning one of the strange fathers of rationality. "In Croton Pythagoras established his academy and became a cult leader. His community was governed by a large number of rules, some dietary, such as those commanding abstinence from meat and from beans, and others of obscure origin, such as the commands not to let a swallow nest under the roof or not to sit on a quart measure. The movement was united by the belief that “all is number.” While the exact meaning of this may be none too clear, that it led to one of the great periods of mathematics is beyond doubt. Not only were the properties of numbers explored in a totally new way and important theorems discovered, of which the familiar theorem of Pythagoras is the best example, but there also emerged what is arguably the first really deep mathematical truth – the discovery of irrational numbers with the realization of the incommensurability of the square root of two."