Less (Information) Is More

The example about predicting the school with the lowest drop out rate shows the parlor trick here. All it's about is ranking the variables (within the hugely complex equation) and going with the highest ranked variable, because it obviously has the most pull on the outcome. I'd like to hear about a more complex test, say where all variables had equal influence on the outcome.....think heuristics could beat a machine then....not a chance. This is all about common sense, it's nothing new or special.

hey future psych, yea mother africa cant steal all the money from herself.

It's best to promote sound logic and critical thinking in a society where the lack of souhd logic and critical thinking prevails. As Antispin alluded to, we don't need any more 'dumbing down' of our society. 'Blink' thinking is great for menial, routine tasks, but I would never use heueristic thinking for more complex, life issues.

BCooper I think you are wrong... Increasing divorce rates and personal credit card debt are NOT just part of the testimony to what happens when gut rules. Increasing divorce rates and personal credit card debt is due to the VERY destructive mind set of the american culture. But that's a whole other issue. I do believe that most times the best decisions are made by gut feelings but this applies to only a few people. People that have a truly good understanding of this world and how it works or just have good "FEELINGS". Data crunching method is a good alternative to those without good intuition, but personally I do not think it is the best. Bottom line only a few have good intuition.

I believe many people do not have good street smarts or are intuitive, therefore they cannot make a decision on their gut feeling.

The "kiss" principle usually works and if you have the propensity to "see the big picture' then often major decisions are made by evaluating at a higher level and ignoring the "noise" from all the details will work in your favor.

One important factor is that you have to make a decision, good or bad. People are reluctant because they are afraid of making the wrong decision or at best not the best decision.

If is smells funny, then most likely it is. Intuition is a natural gift and I think is hard to teach. Experience however goes a long way to becoming more intuitive.

I am one of those people who tend to "overthink" decisions. I even have difficulty making a decision as to what to eat, if the menu is too large. I believe that this lengthy decision making is based in fear. Thank you for letting me know that my original "hunch" is usually right. What I thought about when I read this article is as a child when I played the card game Spades it was always said "study long, study wrong". Now I can apply that to some real life situations.

It's best, perhaps, to promote sound reasoning and logical thinking in a society where lack of reasoning and logic prevails. There should be no apologies or shortcuts for sound thinking. This 'Blink' thinking might be okay for menial, routine tasks. It doesn't, however, make any sense to use heuerisitc thinking for more complex, life decisions.

Yes America! Trust your gut, like george bush jr. does! But in all seriousness...I feel as if this is propaganda to further dumb down the people who haven't yet developed a sense of using science and logic to formulate opinions, as pure logic suggests that most things can be proven by similar actions from another source. ALWAYS do your research, then formulate an opinion!

We tend to overthink things alot when the answer is right in front of us. If we just go with our gut feeling, like we are old to do on test, we will come out better in the end.
- A College Student

Yes America! Trust your gut, like george bush jr. does! But in all seriousness...I feel as if this is propaganda to further dumb down the people who haven't yet developed a sense of using science and logic to formulate opinions, as pure logic suggests that most things can be proven by similar actions from another source. ALWAYS do your research, then formulate an opinion!

George

Ask any high School student who didnt study for a test and just went with his/her gut on test day exactly how effective it was...

I recently raised money for an investment. At the closing dinner, I asked some of the investors why they invested. To a person they all said that my partner had made a lot of money for them in the past, so they invested now. So all the disclosure was meaningless -- my partner was not.

One flaw may be in the value placed on any given data element. One may assess or assign value to a bit of data which more data-collection, processing, and analysis reveals is over- or under-valued. We have glass windows all around our cars, enabling ongoing data-collection. When it snows I often see people who clear a small peephole by which to do their data-collection. A friend who tried it wrecked by turning left into the path of an oncoming car.
There are times to trust one's intuition and times to collect, process and analyze as complete a complement of data as can be amassed before deciding. We can make low-quality decisions if we fail to collect data, mis-collect the wrong data, mis-process, or mis-analyze the data. Again, the demand for a decision immediately may make instinct the most valuable of tools at your disposal.

Thank-god someone has finally put this in perspective and in print. I've been doing this for years, weighing the pros and cons before making a decision and then finally deciding, usually based on much less information. And here I thought I was going nuts! Thanks doc, whew.
Mustang79925

Good feedback, and so true. Time can be much better spent on accomplishments than overthinking our daily lives.

-A Future Psych

Cool article, but the treatment of hard science in this article makes me a little skeptical. First off, regression analysis is hardly "jargon". It is a sound technique that is often used to measure correlations between different sets of data. And, unlike Franklin's "algebra", it is a mathematically proven process (using real math...) which requires a calculus level understanding of optimization. Also, given the fact that a properly done analysis would give the the most probable outcome (based on the given data), it's hard to swallow that the gut instinct would outperform regression on average. So maybe the cases where it happened to are being a little over stated here? Otherwise, you are saying that human intuition will beat the odds - a statement that I think a lot of wealthy casino owners in Las Vegas would strongly disagree with if you wantet a second opinion. It's too short of an article to tell for sure, but this kind of has the smell of junk science about it.

Of course, taking such shortcuts carries two huge risks: first, it opens the door for emotional, irrational desires to wedge their way into the decision-making process, which nearly always leads to bad decisions that might feel good in the short term but ultimately lead to bad results. Second, by taking such shortcuts, one is opened to manipulators who are good at constructing situations where such shortcuts are tempting. Read Robert Cialdini's Persuasion book to learn more about how many cons, high-pressure sales pitches, and other situations can be set up by shrewd people with something to gain to encourage just this kind of snap judgment because they've constructed the situation so that that quick decision favors them.

Of course, taking such shortcuts carries two huge risks: first, it opens the door for emotional, irrational desires to wedge their way into the decision-making process, which nearly always leads to bad decisions that might feel good in the short term but ultimately lead to bad results. Second, by taking such shortcuts, one is opened to manipulators who are good at constructing situations where such shortcuts are tempting. Read Robert Cialdini's Persuasion book to learn more about how many cons, high-pressure sales pitches, and other situations can be set up by shrewd people with something to gain to encourage just this kind of snap judgment because they've constructed the situation so that that quick decision favors them.