Quotes About Decision-making

There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse.

out-of-control emotions can make smart people stupid.

For better or worse, intelligence can come to nothing when the emotions hold sway.

A look at the research shows that regret, handled correctly, offers three broad benefits. It can sharpen our decision-making skills. It can elevate our performance on a range of tasks. And it can strengthen our sense of meaning and connectedness.

So stark were the results that the authors do something rare in academic papers: They offer specific, practical advice. "[A]n important takeaway from our study for corporate executives is that communications with investors, and probably other critical managerial decisions and negotiations, should be conducted earlier in the day.

Economists studied what people did, rather than what we said, because we did what was best for us.

If you happen to appear before a parole board just before a break rather than just after one, you'll likely spend a few more years in jail—not because of the facts of the case but because of the time of day.

In the American Regret Survey, twenty-year-olds had equal numbers of action and inaction regrets. But as people grew older, inaction regrets began to dominate. By age fifty, inaction regrets were twice as common as action regrets. Indeed, according to the data, age was by far the strongest predictor of regrets of inaction. When the universe of opportunities before them has dwindled (as it has with older folks), people seem to regret what they haven't done.

But the third reason might offer the best explanation of all—and help us understand why so few attorneys exemplify Type I behavior. Lawyers often face intense demands but have relatively little "decision latitude.

All deep structure regrets reveal a need and yield a lesson. With moral regrets, the need is goodness. The lesson, which we've heard in religious texts, philosophy tracts, and parental admonitions, is this: when in doubt, do the right thing.

If Only counterfactuals degrade our feelings now, but—and this is key—they can improve our lives later. Regret is the quintessential upward counterfactual—the ultimate If Only. The source of its power, scientists are discovering, is that it muddles the conventional pain-pleasure calculus.[10] Its very purpose is to make us feel worse—because by making us feel worse today, regret helps us do better tomorrow.

Presidents and generals and all the important people in position to make the most important decisions are, by and large, the least equipped for making them. —MICHAEL CRICHTON

Satisficing is one of the foundations of productive human behavior; it prevails when we don't waste time on decisions that don't matter, or more accurately, when we don't waste time trying to find improvements that are not going to make a significant difference in our happiness or satisfaction.

satisficing is a tool for not wasting time on things that are not your highest priority. For your high-priority endeavors, the old-fashioned pursuit of excellence remains the right strategy.

Every status update you read on Facebook, every tweet or text message you get from a friend, is competing for resources in your brain with important things like whether to put your savings in stocks or bonds, where you left your passport, or how best to reconcile with a close friend you just had an argument with.

We make a number of reasoning errors due to cognitive biases.

Effective discipline means that we're not only stopping a bad behavior or promoting a good one, but also teaching skills and nurturing the connections in our children's brains that will help them make better decisions and handle themselves well in the future.

Every time we say "Convince me" or "Come up with a solution that works for both of us," we give our kids the chance to practice problem solving and decision making. We help them consider appropriate behaviors and consequences, and we help them think about what another person feels and wants. All because we found a way to engage the upstairs, instead of enraging the downstairs.

This is really important information for parents to understand, because it means that all of the abilities on the list above—the behaviors and skills we want and expect our kids to demonstrate, like sound decision making, control of their emotions and bodies, empathy, self-understanding, and morality—are dependent on a part of their brain that hasn't fully developed yet. Since the upstairs brain is still under construction, it isn't capable of fully functioning

Think about what this information means, practically, as we raise kids who don't have constant access to their upstairs brain. It's unrealistic to expect them always to be rational, regulate their emotions, make good decisions, think before acting, and be empathetic—all of the things a developed upstairs brain helps them do.

So when children feel furious, dejected, ashamed, embarrassed, overwhelmed, or out of control in any other way, that's when we need to be there for them. Through connection, we can soothe their internal storm, help them calm down, and assist them in making better decisions

like sound decision making, control of their emotions and bodies, empathy, self-understanding, and morality—are dependent on a part of their brain that hasn't fully developed yet. Since

Hay unos ojitos que están observándote para ver cómo te tranquilizas tú. Tus acciones establecerán el ejemplo de cómo se toma una buena decisión en un momento de emociones intensas en el que tú mismo corres el peligro de perder los papeles.

Kids who approach the world from a No Brain state are at the mercy of their circumstances and their feelings. They get stuck in their emotions, unable to shift them, and they complain about their realities rather than finding healthy ways to respond to them. They worry, often obsessively, about facing something new or making a mistake, rather than making decisions in a Yes Brain spirit of openness and curiosity. Stubbornness often rules the day in a No Brain state.