“We’re very good at finding new ways to see the world that make it a better place for us to live in,” he says. He puts this down to our unsung psychological resilience and our ability to rationalise almost any situation. Yet Gilbert and his colleagues have recently shown that while loss aversion affected people’s choices, when they did lose they found it much less painful than they had anticipated ( Psychological Science, vol 17, p 649). So most people would only gamble £5 on the flip of a coin if they could win more than £10. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman from Princeton University has found, for instance, that most people are unwilling to accept a 50:50 bet unless the amount they could win is roughly twice the amount they might lose. ![]() Take our expert-led online neuroscience course to discover how your brain worksĪ major factor leading us to make bad predictions is “loss aversion” – the belief that a loss will hurt more than a corresponding gain will please.Sensibly, we usually plump for the option that we think will make us the happiest overall. ![]() In each case we imagine how the outcomes of our choices will make us feel, and what the emotional or “hedonic” consequences of our actions will be. Whether it’s choosing between a long weekend in Paris or a trip to the ski slopes, a new car versus a bigger house, or even who to marry, almost every decision we make entails predicting the future. Here we bring together some of their many fascinating discoveries in the New Scientist guide to making up your mind. Most of us are ignorant of the mental processes that lie behind our decisions, but this has become a hot topic for investigation, and luckily what psychologists and neurobiologists are finding may help us all make better choices. We must be able to predict the future, accurately perceive the present situation, have insight into the minds of others and deal with uncertainty. Making good decisions requires us to balance the seemingly antithetical forces of emotion and rationality. Yet sometimes we make bad decisions that leave us unhappy or full of regret. ![]() It is central to our individuality: the very definition of free will. Decisions, decisions! Our lives are full of them, from the small and mundane, such as what to wear or eat, to the life-changing, such as whether to get married and to whom, what job to take and how to bring up our children.
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