i think this account is missing something important. i claim that when someone is dithering, there is actually some part of them that has an argument for not doing the thing. that argument may or may not be a good one. but it is hard to verbalize (or even admit to themself) for some reason—for example, explicitly considering the argument may require admitting something unseemly, or confronting a deeply held fear. although oftentimes the explicit argument is more correct than the implicit one, i’ve personally had instances where i introspected on my dithering and realized that my implicit argument had a good point and ultimately not doing the thing was the right choice.
a corollary: the empathetic thing to do when someone is going through this is to realize that their inability to verbalize reasons against doing the thing doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have such reasons, and to help them work through their internal conflict.
Of course it’s worth asking whether, when you have lots of reasons to do a thing, but your “revealed preference” is apparently not to, whether you have some unconscious but good case against doing the thing. I’ve found that to be the case surprisingly rarely; between explicit & revealed preferences i expect explicit preferences “should” win more often than not.
i think this account is missing something important. i claim that when someone is dithering, there is actually some part of them that has an argument for not doing the thing. that argument may or may not be a good one. but it is hard to verbalize (or even admit to themself) for some reason—for example, explicitly considering the argument may require admitting something unseemly, or confronting a deeply held fear. although oftentimes the explicit argument is more correct than the implicit one, i’ve personally had instances where i introspected on my dithering and realized that my implicit argument had a good point and ultimately not doing the thing was the right choice.
a corollary: the empathetic thing to do when someone is going through this is to realize that their inability to verbalize reasons against doing the thing doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have such reasons, and to help them work through their internal conflict.
Thanks for giving your own example here.
Of course it’s worth asking whether, when you have lots of reasons to do a thing, but your “revealed preference” is apparently not to, whether you have some unconscious but good case against doing the thing. I’ve found that to be the case surprisingly rarely; between explicit & revealed preferences i expect explicit preferences “should” win more often than not.