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Shortcut to Conflict Resolution With Game Theory

Posted on by by Posted in Group/Interactive Decisions, Conflict Resolution, Risk and Uncertainty

“Fair Outcomes”, an online system, offers an ingenious alternative to conflict resolution, based on the principles of game theory. The ABA journal has just published an article about it.

In contrast to litigation, arbitration, mediation, negotiation, and traditional sealed-bid/split-the difference arrangements, this system offers no incentive or excuse for either party to bluff or posture – or to try to posture through a refusal to use it.

The beauty is that it not only can save both parties an enormous amount of legal fees, but that the outcome is usually more favorable to each party than what that party
had proposed.

The system is very transparent and well documented, so if you’re interested in the topic, take some time to browse the website and think it through. If you prefer videos, here is a series of presentations that explain the underlying principles.


Book Recommendation for the New Year

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Health Decisions, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

Charles Duhigg. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.

This book offers a very well-researched but easy to understand explanation of how we form and maintain habits. Gaining a deeper understanding of this general mechanism gives us as readers a very useful starting point to develop our own interventions in kicking old unwanted habits and forming new intentional ones. It is not the kind of book that offers a lot of specific advice, but it gives you the knowledge to develop your own best practices. I have found it a very useful framework for improving my own habits, as well as for my coaching work with clients who want to achieve specific goals in their work or personal lives.


Are we better at deciding for others than deciding for ourselves?

Posted on by by Posted in Uncategorized

It seems that if we are making choices for others, we are often doing a better job than if we are deciding for ourselves. This seems to be the case for quite different aspects of decision-making. For example, previous studies had already shown that people are looking for more information if they’re deciding for others than if they’re deciding for themselves. Now, this new study by Evan Polman shows that people who make decisions for others are less affected by typical biases (I’m happy to help you get the full articles if you’re interested).

In particular, this study suggests that making choices for others can reduce people’s loss aversion, which is our typical tendency to let negative events weigh into our decisions much more heavily than positive events.
Interestingly, older people also show less loss aversion than younger people, along with generally being more emotionally competent in their decision-making.

Could it be that deciding for others lends a temporary maturity to our thinking patterns?
If so, how can we make use of that knowledge? Well, when facing important decisions, we could simply imagine giving advice to others about that decision. That can help us get a healthy distance from the problem and hopefully bring out some unexpected wisdom.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Book Recommendation on Consumer Decisions: “Spent”

Posted on by by Posted in Book Recommendations, Financial Decisions

I guess I could call this a “seasonal pick”, as Amazon keeps counting down the days to Black Friday:

Geoffrey Miller (2009). Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior 

Book cover (cropped) of "Spent" by Geoffrey Miller

Geoffrey Miller presents an evolutionary psychology perspective on consumer decisions: why do we buy so much, and why do we buy the stuff we do?
(No, it’s not about cave dwellers and their preference for fur.)

Just like his earlier book “The Mating Mind”, it was very much worth reading the whole book, rather than just leafing through it and thinking that I “got the message”. The main message may indeed be simple (conspicuous consumption as a mating signal to indicate fitness), but there is a huge richness in data and an elegance of theory that make this book thought-provoking, amusing, and insightful on many levels. It also helps that Miller is a fearless, eloquent and humorous writer.

As far as food for thought goes, this book is delicious and satisfying.

Happy Thanksgiving!

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

 

 


Thinking in a foreign language makes decisions more rational

Posted on by by Posted in Creative Thinking, Intuition

An interesting study that came out this year suggests that when people think in another than their native language, they are judging risks more rationally:

With several experiments, the researchers showed that those thinking in a foreign language did not fall prey to the typical biases and framing effects, and overall made more rational decisions than those thinking in their own native language.

Why is that? It seems counter-intuitive on first sight, but it makes perfect sense, if thinking in a foreign language helps us slows down. The more awkward way of thinking may lead to less automatic processing and help us think more deliberately.

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Which types of decisions do we regret most?

Posted on by by Posted in Career Development, Relationship Decisions

In this TED talk, Kathryn Schulz makes the rather unusual
claim that regret is not always a bad thing:

It is a worthwhile talk for many reasons. One thing I found
particularly remarkable was a study she cites, which showed
that the kinds of decisions people regret most are decisions
concerning their education and career. Next up are romance
and parenting as fields where people experience considerable
regrets.

Interestingly though, people seem to have hardly any regrets
about finances or health, which are by far the most
extensively researched decision domains.
I do hope that more decision scientists will in the future
venture out into those other (messier?) domains, like
relationships or careers, where people seem to have a lot
more difficulties with their decisions.


Book Recommendation for October

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations

Jon Krakauer: Into Thin Air

This is Jon Krakauer’s bone-chilling eye-witness report of the disastrous 1996 Mount Everest climb that killed eight people. I’m not going to discuss why this book is about decision making and goal achievement (well – the dark side of focusing on a goal). All I’ll say here is it was a page-turner for me. I have deep respect for a writer who can make 400+ pages about climbing a mountain go by so quickly, and yet leave such an impression.


Choose both

Posted on by by Posted in Creative Thinking

A friend just sent me this wonderful poem by Robert Crawford. Couldn’t be more perfect for here:

When you are faced with two alternatives
Choose both. And should they put you to the test,
Tick every box. Nothing is ever single.
A seed’s a tree’s a ship’s a constellation.
Nail your true colours to this branching mast.
— Robert Crawford


Relationship decisions – deciding matters…

Posted on by by Posted in Relationship Decisions

Here is a very interesting new take on an older debate: why is living together before marriage, particularly before engagement, associated with higher risks for divorce?
http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/2012/9/11/twos-company-but-is-it-necessarily-bad-company.html

It is an uncomfortable finding for us secular liberal folks…. accordingly, many explanations have been brought forth, such as that the two groups likely differed from the beginning (correlation is not causation, post-hoc is not propter hoc, etc.). This newer study though not only controls for many selection factors in a huge sample, but additionally uses a longitudinal subsample, which makes it harder to make those arguments.

Among other explanations that the article mentions, here is – of course! – my favorite: people who start living together before really committing to each other may “slide” into a marriage, rather than deciding consciously and fully before taking that step. Interestingly, people who get engaged before moving together show the same pattern as those who get married before moving together, which is consistent with that interpretation.
I simply take that as yet another vote for making our decisions carefully and consciously, and then truly owning them.

Rhoades, G.K. and Stanley, S.M. and Markman, H.J. (2012). The impact of the transition to cohabitation on relationship functioning: Cross-sectional and longitudinal findings. Journal of Family Psychology, 26 (3), 348-358.


Book Recommendation for September

Posted on by by Posted in Book Recommendations, Creative Thinking, Uncategorized

Morgan D. Jones. The Thinker’s Toolkit: 14 Powerful Techniques for Problem Solving:

Nice collection of simple strategies that help thinking and problem-solving; from problem structuring to hypothesis testing, and also some basic trees and matrices to deal with probabilities and decisions.

When I was on jury duty recently, I used his technique for hypothesis testing to list the evidence for and against a “guilty” verdict. It was quite helpful for taking notes and getting all the pieces in order.


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