YOYO-ISG 100321 Are we in control of our own decisions?

[Sherry Liao]

Dear ISG members,

A few months ago I read a book called "誰說人是理性的(Predictably Irrational)" by Dan Ariely, and was impressed by those ideas about human behavior in economics. I am glad that I found a TED talk in which the author mentioned some of the ideas in his book. I hope you also enjoy it.

TED talk: Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions?
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_a ... sions.html

Please watch the video clip and write a summary. You are welcome to share some ideas of your own about this topic.

[Kooper]

Hi Sherry,

Thanks for introducing us this humorous and informative speech. I couldn't help but smile a lot when I watched it.

BTW, I found that Dan Ariely delivered another speech on TED http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_ ... _code.html. In which he seemed to also talk about irrationality. I will try to find some time watching it as well.

[Kooper]

Something about DMV and the forms of DMV:

DMV: Department of Motor Vehicles


How do I become a donor?

When receiving or renewing a CT or MA driver’s license or ID card, you will be asked if you wish to become an organ and tissue donor. The information you provide goes into a donor registry database accessible by the organ procurement organization (OPO). If you answer “YES”, this is legal consent for donation.

source: http://www.ct.gov/dmv/cwp/view.asp?A=805&Q=291556

[Kooper]

My summary:

The speaker disillusioned us that we human beings are in fact not as rational and independent as we think we are. Just as human eyes could be fooled by visual illusions, so chances are that human brains make so-called rational decisions out of cognitive illusions. What makes it worse is that cognitive illusions are much more difficult to be demonstrated than visual ones and thus are more misleading. When it comes to making a choice, especially a difficult and complex one, our selections are particularly susceptible to external forces: we tend to pick the default option offered to us; a well-designed option may seem redundant on the surface but determines our preference. When the redundant option is similar to another one but not as attractive, it can help the second one look superior to not only the first one but also the rest options.

[jacksonwang]

This lecture is quite impressive and informative. Speaker disillusion some idea we seldom think deeply and thoroughly, people usually make decision with their common sense they think it is rational, trivial and obvious but it is not indeed. Just like human eyes are easily fooled by cognitive illusions. When it comes to make a choice, people tend to choose default value rather than particular one and they reluctant to make it complicatedly. When the redundant inferior options come among the normal one, the normal one will turn to superior. From all the experiments the speaker did, we think we are rational, but it looks like we are not in control of our own decisions.

[chiron]

Hi Sherry,

Thanks for introducing us this humorous and informative speech. I couldn't help but smile a lot when I watched it.

BTW, I found that Dan Ariely delivered another speech on TED http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_ ... _code.html. In which he seemed to also talk about irrationality. I will try to find some time watching it as well.

To be honest, I missed some funny points. I don't know what's so funny?

[chiron]

This lecture is about how irrational human beings are. We will not only be decived by what we see, it's called "illusion"; we will also be confused by what we decide when it comes to comparison. The same choices presented in a different way or put with other choices will cause totally different effect. So how should we overcome it? I suggest eliminate all the redundant information and just focus on the key point. That will help us see through surface and reach truth. However, not every thing in real life should be decided so cautiously. Mostly, our irrational behavior comes from unconscious mind. As Dr. 洪蘭 said, human beings are "congnitive miser". We deal unimportant trivia in a lazier method allowing us to save our efforts and energy. That's why we are tend to delete dilemma directly and choose a not so bad result even thought it's not the best answer.

p.s. On the other hand, when it comes to important decision, I don't think human brain still works like what this speaker said. We are not primitive one-celled organism.

[Sherry Liao]

My summary:

In the speech, Dan Ariely talked about some human behavior of decision making. Ariely said people think they can act on their own will when making decisions, but the truth is the decisions we make in our daily life are not usually resigned by ourselves but by other people or environment, and we are not aware of it. It's called "decision making illusion".

Ariely took some examples to illustrate his ideas and explained that contrary to our intuition, the decisions which we care but are difficult and complex to make stand a better chance to be influenced by others. Also, we are not as good at knowing our preferences as we think. When we are to making a choice among several options, we have a tendency to choose the one which is accompanied by a slightly worse counterpart.

It seems a bit miserable to know that we are not in full control of making our own decision. However, by knowing better about our cognitive limitation, we can make plans in advance when we are about to make an important decision.

[Sherry Liao]

I was counting how many "decision making" I used in my summary... Just wonder what the synonyms are for this phrase.

[janet12tw]

In this speech, the speaker tells us our decisions can be easily affected by some outer factors. For example, visually, when we put two tables together. One is put vertically, and the other is put horizontally. We will think the table put vertically is longer than the one put horizontally. But in fact, they are in the same length.

Cognitively, when we make a sentence in the questionaire in a positive or negative form, the result will be different. For example, if we ask people to check in the box in from of the sentence " Check If you want to donate your organ", people usually don't check so they don't join. But if the sentence is "Check if you don't want to donate your organ", people still don't check but then it means they join.

As a result, we know our physical limitations so we build the world around us based on it. But in the mental world, we tend to forget our cognitive limitations and build the systems such as healthcare, retirement and stockmarkets. So if we can also put our cognitive limitations into consideration, we may be able to build a better world in the future.

[chiron]

So sorry, I slept overtime again.

[chiron]

I was counting how many "decision making" I used in my summary... Just wonder what the synonyms are for this phrase.

Maybe you can just say, "decide" as a verb, or "policy making", "strategy producing" as nouns.

[Michael-liu]

So sorry, I slept overtime again.

Hi, Chiron

There is a verb for that , which is "oversleep" ^.^

Michael