{"id":62851,"date":"2022-04-05T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-05T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=62851"},"modified":"2022-04-06T13:42:23","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T17:42:23","slug":"unconscious-decision-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/unconscious-decision-making\/","title":{"rendered":"The Benefits of Unconscious Decision-Making"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Do you ever make decisions on the fly, without taking the time to consider their potential consequences? Can snap decisions\u2014decisions made by the unconscious mind\u2014be better than decisions made with deliberation? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout our lives, we\u2019ve been taught that our decisions are sounder if a lot of time and effort has gone into making them. But unconscious decisions can actually be just as good as\u2014or even better than\u2014the decisions that we make by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-analyze-a-situation\/\">analyzing a situation<\/a> carefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn about the benefits of unconscious <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/methods-of-decision-making-crucial-conversations\/\">decision-making<\/a> and how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snap-decisions\/\">snap decisions<\/a> work in the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-benefits-of-snap-decisions\"><strong>The Benefits of Snap Decisions<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Gladwell believes there are<strong> two primary benefits of snap decisions:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>They\u2019re quick<\/li><li>They\u2019re unconscious<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The value of speed is obvious in situations in which there\u2019s no time to think things through. EMTs, firefighters, and police officers make snap decisions all the time. But even though we don\u2019t realize it, we\u2019re <em>all <\/em>making snap decisions constantly, and we all find ourselves in situations where time is limited and we need to act quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-advantages-of-deciding-with-the-unconscious-mind\"><strong>The Advantages of Deciding With the Unconscious Mind<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to being speedy, snap decisions are unconscious. <strong>Unconscious decision-making frees up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-subconscious\/\">the conscious mind<\/a> to focus on problems that need our deliberate attention.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-how-snap-decisions-work-in-the-brain\"><strong>How Snap Decisions Work in the Brain<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Gladwell explains that scientists can see how much work the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-unconscious-mind\/\">unconscious mind<\/a> does by observing people with damage to their ventromedial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-does-the-prefrontal-cortex-do-in-the-brain\/\">prefrontal cortex<\/a>, which is one <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-are-the-regions-of-the-brain\/\">area of the brain<\/a> involved in unconscious decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Gladwell points out, people with ventromedial damage can\u2019t make snap judgments. Their unconscious minds don\u2019t prioritize information for them, so they give equal weight to minor and major details when making a decision. People with ventromedial damage can spend hours sifting through options before making a trivial decision, such as when to schedule their next appointment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: Not all researchers working with ventromedial patients have found the same thing. In fact, <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/cercor\/article\/17\/11\/2669\/284188\">it seems more common for people with ventromedial damage to make decisions as quickly as controls but to be wildly inconsistent in their preferences<\/a>. For example, in their choice of preferred foods, they might rate doughnuts as tastier than carrot sticks and carrot sticks as tastier than watermelon, but then say that watermelon is tastier than doughnuts.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People with ventromedial damage also have trouble turning decisions into actions. They\u2019re highly rational thinkers and don\u2019t involve their emotions when making decisions. This seems like a good thing, as we\u2019re often told to leave our emotions out of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/rational-decision-making-process\/\">decision-making process<\/a>. But <strong>we need an emotional push to get from decisions to actions. <\/strong>Without emotions, we may intellectually know that something is bad for us, but we\u2019ll keep doing it anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Gladwell argues, working with less information means that you\u2019re less likely to be distracted by irrelevant details. If you let your unconscious mind do its job without interfering too much, you get decisions that are clean, fast, and surprisingly accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gladwell introduces the idea of \u201cthin-slicing\u201d to explain why our unconscious minds are so efficient at making snap judgments.<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/thin-slicing-malcolm-gladwell-blink\/\">Thin-slicing<\/a> is using a small segment of information (for example, a 10-second video) to make a quick decision. As evidence that it works, Gladwell describes <a href=\"http:\/\/faculty.fortlewis.edu\/burke_b\/Senior\/BLINK%20replication\/teacherthinslicing.pdf\">a study by Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal<\/a> that looked at student evaluations of teachers. These researchers found no significant difference between the evaluations of students who had taken a whole semester-long class with the teacher and those who had watched a video of less than 30 seconds of the same teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: Gladwell doesn\u2019t attribute the term \u201cthin-slicing\u201d to anyone in particular, and he\u2019s often credited with coining it. But the idea of taking \u201cthin slices\u201d of experience comes from <a href=\"https:\/\/citeseerx.ist.psu.edu\/viewdoc\/download?doi=10.1.1.1001.7628&amp;rep=rep1&amp;type=pdf\">a 1992 paper by Ambady and Rosenthal<\/a> that reviewed research on how people interpret short segments of non-verbal behavior. They showed that people who made judgments about someone\u2019s honesty and professional competence based on a 30-second video were just as accurate as those who watched a 5-minute video.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Thin-Slicing Offers Insights into Human Behavior<\/strong><br><br>Research interest in thin-slicing has spread to many fields, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4465234\/\">interpersonal relationships<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC8727223\/\">clinical evaluations<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/15295192.2021.2004076\">parenting<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thejuryexpert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/JuryExpert_1209_Full.pdf\">the legal system<\/a>. There\u2019s also considerable overlap with studies of body language\u2014for example, researchers have found that <a href=\"https:\/\/greatergood.berkeley.edu\/dacherkeltner\/docs\/kraus.inpress.pdf\">we can accurately judge someone\u2019s socioeconomic status based on thin slices of their body language<\/a>. We do this by looking at the degree to which they show engagement with others: \u201cEngagement cues,\u201d such as nodding and smiling, tend to reflect low socioeconomic status, while people with higher socioeconomic status are more likely to show \u201cdisengagement cues\u201d such as doodling. In general, <a href=\"https:\/\/kevin.burke.dev\/pdf\/30_seconds_teacher_quality.pdf\">you\u2019ll be judged more positively on first impression<\/a> if you make eye contact, avoid fidgeting, smile, and make open-handed gestures. A stiff posture, frowning, and looking down will lead people to judge you negatively.<br><br>Researchers are even trying to link how we appear in thin-slicing judgments to our genes. For example, one recent study found that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/pnas\/108\/48\/19189.full.pdf\">people who are genetically predisposed to have more active oxytocin receptors are more likely to express prosocial behavior and positive body language<\/a> (e.g., nodding their heads and smiling). This in turn makes people judge them more positively when thin-slicing.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-thin-slicing-example-gottman-s-love-lab\"><strong>Thin-Slicing Example: Gottman\u2019s \u201cLove Lab\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Gladwell introduces psychologist John Gottman\u2019s \u201clove lab\u201d as an analogy for what\u2019s happening in our brains when we thin-slice. Since the 1980s, more than 3,000 married couples have taken part in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gottman.com\/\">Gottman\u2019s research at the University of Washington<\/a>. Gottman\u2019s work suggests that <strong>if you know how to \u201cthin-slice\u201d a marriage\u2014that is, if you know which information is relevant and which isn\u2019t\u2014you can accurately <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/no-one-can-predict-the-future\/\">predict the future<\/a> of the marriage.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gottman and his colleagues videotape couples having a \u201cmeaningful interaction,\u201d perhaps discussing a point of contention or talking about how they met. They also hook the subjects up to sensors that take physiological measurements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: Some researchers have argued that Gottman\u2019s sample sizes are too small to be meaningful, and that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC1622921\/\">his studies don\u2019t take into account false positives<\/a> due to the low base rates of divorce. <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/human-interest\/2010\/03\/a-dissection-of-john-gottman-s-love-lab.html\">Others have questioned whether what Gottman does can be called \u201cprediction\u201d at all<\/a>. He apparently makes his predictions after he already knows the outcomes of participants\u2019 marriages, using technology to match the outcome with the noted patterns to create predictions in hindsight. Gottman has disputed this interpretation of his work on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gottman.com\/about\/research\/faq\/\">Gottman Institute website<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The way Gottman zeroes in on the most important pieces of information is similar to what our unconscious minds do when they thin-slice. <strong>A well-trained unconscious mind lasers in on the most significant details and disregards the rest.<\/strong> This is why thin-slicing allows for speedy decision-making, since it doesn\u2019t involve processing a lot of information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Do We Thin-Slice Potential Romantic Partners?<\/strong><br><br>Gottman thin-slices long-term relationships to gain insights into their history, but what about the thin-slicing that we engage in when screening potential new partners? Tinder wasn\u2019t around when Gladwell wrote <em>Blink<\/em>, but it\u2019s a textbook example of making fast decisions based on very little information.<br><br>Researchers haven\u2019t investigated thin-slicing behavior on Tinder, but they <em>have<\/em> looked at what happens in speed dating sessions. Speed dating, which was invented in the late 1990s by Rabbi Yaacov Deyo to help connect Jewish singles in Los Angeles, is an ideal context for thin-slicing studies. For example, researchers found that female speed daters (in a heterosexual speed dating scenario) were <a href=\"https:\/\/citeseerx.ist.psu.edu\/viewdoc\/download?doi=10.1.1.624.5535&amp;rep=rep1&amp;type=pdf\">faster than the males to notice negative qualities in their dates<\/a>. In another study, researchers compared the qualities that people said they were looking for before the speed dates with the partners they actually chose to see again, finding that <a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu\/eli-finkel\/documents\/FinkelEastwickCDir_PageProofs5-20-08.pdf\">we\u2019re not very good at identifying what we like in people until we meet them<\/a>\u2014perhaps a reason to give someone a chance if you\u2019re sitting on the fence.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you ever make decisions on the fly, without taking the time to consider their potential consequences? Can snap decisions\u2014decisions made by the unconscious mind\u2014be better than decisions made with deliberation? Throughout our lives, we\u2019ve been taught that our decisions are sounder if a lot of time and effort has gone into making them. But unconscious decisions can actually be just as good as\u2014or even better than\u2014the decisions that we make by analyzing a situation carefully. Learn about the benefits of unconscious decision-making and how snap decisions work in the brain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":24851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,43],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-62851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-self-improvement","tag-blink","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Benefits of Unconscious Decision-Making - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Snap, unconscious decisions can actually be just as good as\u2014or even better than\u2014the decisions made by deliberation. 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