Tag: “Science”

All of us, some more than others, are victims of the default effect. When we have a lot of options to choose from, among which there’s a predetermined one—a default choice—most of us just go with the standard option. In other words, we choose not to choose.

It is a fact. Crossing out tasks or marking them as completed with a simple √ within a to-do list makes you feel great.

“Satisficing” is a term that the economist Herbert Simon coined in 1956. It’s actually a cross between the words “satisfying” and “sufficing”, and comes to say that when we have to make a decision, we generally don’t waste much time evaluating all possible options, we just choose the first reasonable option we find.

When we are working usually there’s a background noise intermittently distracting us and hindering us from finishing the task at hand. Whenever a noise or an outside conversation distracts you, your brain suffers a small disconnection from the task at hand and you will need a few seconds—sometimes it can be minutes—to reconnect and continue the task from the point where you had stopped.

The referee gives a penalty kick in a soccer match. The ball will take a split second to reach the goal from the moment of the striker’s kick, so the goalie cannot wait to see the ball’s trajectory to decide to which side he should jump. The decision should be taken beforehand. The odd thing is that the goalkeeper will decide, in most cases, to jump to the right side or to the left side, when the optimal strategy according to statistics is the third option: standing in the middle. Why won’t he stand still? Just because doing nothing is always somewhat embarrassing, even if it is the right thing to do.