Levitt collected tens of thousands of people who were deeply unsure whether to make a big change in their life. After offering some advice on how to make hard choices, those who remained truly undecided were given the chance to use a flip of a coin to settle the issue. 22,500 did so. Levitt then followed up two and six months later to ask people whether they had actually made the change, and how happy they were out of 10.
The causal effect of quitting a job is estimated to be a gain of 5.2 happiness points out of 10, and breaking up as a gain of 2.7 out of 10! This is the kind of welfare jump you might expect if you moved from one of the least happy countries in the world to one of the happiest, though presumably these effects would fade over time.
I suspect the effect is less about change being generally good and more about inertia being generally bad. It’s hard to commit to major life changes, even when we expect them to be positive, just because humans are risk-averse by nature. I’d also be willing to bet that many of those people would’ve quit their jobs or broken up with their partners sometime within the next year anyway — it’s just that the coin flip accelerated the process and forced them to stop dithering.
My understanding of ”Analysis Paralysis” is it originally meant inability to resolve a decision with equifinal outcomes. A manager actually does all the correct multi-factor optimizations, correctly applies values and there’s just no tie breaker.
My guess when this happens is that it sticks out in the brain as “that can’t be right. It just can’t not matter at all if we make play dough or oven mitts.” It’s pretty counterintuitive (at least to many) that such situations could really exist. So the stuckness probably comes from assuming one’s analysis is wrong and looking for the missed decision factor.
An empathetic and hopefully useful set of steps might be try to help the person spot deciding facts they haven’t identified. But if neither you nor they can come up with anything, suggest “Maybe it’s as likely to be a great decision either way. How about a coin flip?”
I’m reminded of this 80,000 Hours article about making major life decisions.
I suspect the effect is less about change being generally good and more about inertia being generally bad. It’s hard to commit to major life changes, even when we expect them to be positive, just because humans are risk-averse by nature. I’d also be willing to bet that many of those people would’ve quit their jobs or broken up with their partners sometime within the next year anyway — it’s just that the coin flip accelerated the process and forced them to stop dithering.
My understanding of ”Analysis Paralysis” is it originally meant inability to resolve a decision with equifinal outcomes. A manager actually does all the correct multi-factor optimizations, correctly applies values and there’s just no tie breaker.
My guess when this happens is that it sticks out in the brain as “that can’t be right. It just can’t not matter at all if we make play dough or oven mitts.” It’s pretty counterintuitive (at least to many) that such situations could really exist. So the stuckness probably comes from assuming one’s analysis is wrong and looking for the missed decision factor.
An empathetic and hopefully useful set of steps might be try to help the person spot deciding facts they haven’t identified. But if neither you nor they can come up with anything, suggest “Maybe it’s as likely to be a great decision either way. How about a coin flip?”