How to make the big decisions
Stuck in analysis paralysis? This psychological study offers a way out
Hello, and happy Saturday.
I’ve been delighted by the responses to last week’s post on insomnia. Thank you to everyone who read, subscribed and offered their thoughts.
Today, I’d like to talk about decision-making. If you’re like me, you may find yourself dreaming of new schemes and life changes without ever taking the plunge. I’ve been considering getting a tattoo for years, and still haven’t let an artist put their needle in my skin, so you can imagine my indecision when the stakes are high.
Psychologists call this preference for inaction over action the “status quo bias” – and an ingenious experiment by Steven Levitt (of Freakonomics fame) shows that it is a major barrier to a more fulfilling existence.
He first set up a website that offered to help people with their quandaries. Visitors were first given a list of questions that might apply to their lives, including:
Should I quit my job?
Should I break up?
Should I go back to school?
Should I start my own business?
Should I move?
Should I quit smoking?
Should I have a child?
Should I propose?
Should I retire?
Should I adopt?
Once they had picked a question that applied to their own life, the participants were offered the chance to toss a virtual coin. If it landed on heads, they were advised to make a big life change; if it came up tails, they were advised to remain in their current situation. Email questionnaires then tracked their progress after two and then six months.
Within a year, that virtual coin had been tossed 22,511 times. As you might expect, some people chose to ignore the coin’s advice, but many followed it. Overall, the people who got heads were about 26 per cent more likely to go for the life-changing decision, and they were much happier for it, compared with those who had continued with the status quo.
I was particularly struck by the size of the effect. Psychological interventions often produce tiny increments in people’s well-being, but these participants experienced a serious boost. When you consider how one person’s happiness compared to others, it was the equivalent of shifting someone from the average to the top 16 per cent.
Interestingly, Levitt also tracked people making lower-stakes decisions – such as whether to go on a diet, change their hair colour or get a tattoo – but these decisions did much less to affect their life satisfaction. I guess this is predictable, though I can’t help but wonder if the surveys were simply too spaced out to measure an effect on shorter-term happiness.
Levitt’s findings might not answer my question about my tattoo (though I’m tempted to toss a coin and follow its lead) but they should certainly offer us some encouragement for those big decisions. We’re far more likely to regret sitting on the sidelines, anxiously waiting for life to happen to us, than making a big leap – so we might as well embrace the opportunity for change.
Levitt’s research puts me in mind of Henry James’s novella The Beast in the Jungle, in which the main character John Marcher spends his life in a state of anxious anticipation, convinced that a momentous, though undefined, event awaits him. The result is a life of missed opportunities. Inaction is itself a choice – and may cost you more than a calculated gamble. You can never win if you never throw your chips on the table.
Almost any decision worth taking will involve some risks, but the philosophy and psychology of happiness teach us three factors that can stack the odds in our favour: the right choice aligns with our values, brings out our best qualities, and provides meaning and purpose to our existence.
What it means to belong
I’ve just published a piece in the Tes (formerly Times Educational Supplement) on the concept of “belonging”, which is becoming increasingly fashionable in schools, universities and the workplace. Here’s my favourite takeaway from the piece:
Greg Walton explains that most children and adolescents value the growth that education can offer but they will often worry whether they’ll be able to take advantage of it. As a result, they may be highly sensitive to any cues that could be suggestive of their potential to thrive in the new environment. If you are white, middle class and come from a family that already has a high level of education, you may have fewer doubts about whether you can fit into that environment. But for other people, the sense of belonging can be considerably more volatile…
Walton’s solution is to reassure the students that small frustrations and challenges are common and surmountable hurdles in someone’s passage through education, so that the small sign of adversity no longer has such an impact. For one of their first studies, Walton and his colleague Geoffrey Cohen interviewed undergraduates about the difficulties they had faced starting college and how they overcame them. They then edited these anecdotes into short “parables”, which - they hoped - could inspire first-year students in their second semester at a selective college.
The participants read the stories, wrote about a few of their anxieties, and then - to consolidate what they had learned - recorded a short speech to encourage others who might be facing uncertainty. The exercise took an hour to complete, yet the effects on students from minority groups, who felt a low sense of belonging, were quite remarkable: their grades rose term by term for the next three years, halving the achievement gap between European-American and African-American students.
One final piece of self-promotion: I had a great conversation with Ryan Dusick (mental health advocate and founding drummer of Maroon 5) and actor Brian “Duck” Maillard for their podcast Harder to Breathe. You should be able to find it on all the usual platforms, or you can watch the video here.
Thanks, as ever, for reading – and if you’ve enjoyed the experience, please do consider clicking subscribe and share on the buttons below, or forward the email to anyone who might appreciate it.
Have a great weekend! I’m looking forward to spending the next few days in Lyon, France for a short break.
David