{"id":62866,"date":"2022-04-04T08:03:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T12:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=62866"},"modified":"2022-04-06T13:42:20","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T17:42:20","slug":"gut-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/gut-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Gut Decisions: 4 Tips for Making Better Choices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why do they say “trust your gut”? How do you know when your gut is right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gut decisions can be advantageous in some circumstances, but they can lead you astray in others. Malcolm Gladwell suggests that you can make better instinctive decisions by providing the unconscious mind<\/a> with structure. This involves rehearsing your desired spontaneous responses and developing rules that you can fall back on in times of stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s how you can “train your gut” to make better decisions<\/a>, according to Gladwell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Improving Our Gut Judgments<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking<\/a> Without Thinking<\/em>, Malcolm Gladwell provides the following specific advice for improving instinctive or “gut” decision-making<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Incorporate both deliberate and unconscious thinking<\/a>.<\/li>
  2. Be selective with the information you consider.<\/li>
  3. Rehearse.<\/li>
  4. Avoid making snap decisions<\/a> when you\u2019re stressed.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Let\u2019s look at each piece of advice in more detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Incorporate Both Deliberate and Unconscious Thinking<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Neither deliberate nor intuitive decision-making<\/a> is inherently good or bad. Whether these strategies are good, bad, or neutral depends on the situation. If we have time, resources, and a clearly defined task, deliberate decision-making<\/a> is productive. It can also prime us for \u201crapid cognition,\u201d or snap judgments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Part of how we can make better decisions is to understand when the deliberate approach is best, and when the intuitive approach is best. Gladwell suggests that, where possible, we start with deliberate decision-making<\/strong>. This lays the groundwork for future rapid cognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Layering Deliberate and Unconscious Thinking in Team Sports<\/strong>

    We can take any team sport as an example of the combination of conscious and unconscious thinking that Gladwell suggests. In most of these sports there are three levels of structure. First, we have the rules of the game. These give us an overarching goal and clear parameters, which allow us to easily frame the decisions we make as good or bad, depending on their outcomes. (Did that pass lead to a goal? If so, it was a good decision. If the ball got stolen by the other team, it was a bad decision.) Second, we have our game plan for a particular match. This is created through deliberate thinking by the coach and players. Finally, we have the spontaneous, instinctive decisions that we make during the game. The rules of the game and our overall game plan both provide a structure for the rapid-fire decisions that we make after the game starts.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    2. Be Selective With the Information You Consider<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Gladwell\u2019s second piece of advice is not to overload yourself with detail. Too much information can be a burden. Find the most essential data points and make a decision<\/a> based on those.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You don\u2019t need a lot of information to identify patterns\u2014just the right<\/em> information. If we want to protect the integrity of our snap judgments, we need to limit the data we consider when making a decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    (Shortform note: For this advice to be genuinely useful, we need to have some way of distinguishing crucial from superfluous information. Gladwell doesn\u2019t provide this, but a good way of doing this is interpreting the information we receive as \u201csignal,\u201d or information that reveals key patterns, plus \u201cnoise,\u201d or information that distracts us from the signal. If we listen carefully for the signal, we\u2019re more likely to be feeding meaningful information into our unconscious decision-making<\/a> apparatus. As Nate Silver argues in The Signal and the Noise<\/em><\/a>, people who are highly accurate forecasters tend to use statistical analyses to separate signal from noise. They also avoid being overconfident in their predictions and pay extreme attention to detail<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As an example of the pitfalls of overloading yourself with information before a decision, Gladwell discusses a shift that occurred at Cook County Hospital in Chicago in the late 1990s<\/strong>, when it changed the way it assessed ER patients with chest pain. Previously, doctors had taken a multitude of complex factors into account when diagnosing heart problems, leading to many inconsistent and potentially incorrect decisions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A new computer algorithm reduced that large number of factors to four<\/strong>. The algorithm increased the accuracy of negative diagnoses <\/strong>by 70% (reducing the costs to the hospital of admitting patients who weren\u2019t in danger of having a heart attack) and increased the accuracy of positive diagnoses to 95% (saving the lives of people who did go on to have major complications).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3. Rehearse<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Gladwell suggests that to make better snap decisions, you need to practice. He suggests two types of specific practice. First, you should practice making fast decisions in stressful situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    How Does Rehearsal Work? Practice, Automatization, and the Brain<\/strong>

    It seems obvious that practicing something will help us get better at it. But what physiological mechanism underlies this process? Norman Doidge argues in The Brain That Changes Itself<\/em><\/a> <\/em>that when you practice something, you\u2019re increasing your brain\u2019s efficiency in executing the task. New tasks (for example learning to play scales on the piano) are cognition-heavy, recruiting a massive number of neurons across different brain areas<\/a>. Practice helps our brains determine which particular networks or neurons are best suited for the task and lock in their responses, freeing up cognitive capacity for more and more challenging versions of the task. Interestingly, mental rehearsal seems to be almost as effective as rehearsing the whole action<\/a>.

    Neuroimaging studies of experts back up this interpretation\u2014for example,     the brains of professional violinists are more efficient and focused in their processing of motor movements than those of amateurs<\/a>, which frees up capacity for the higher-level processes involved in interpretation and musicality. Physically and\/or mentally rehearsing<\/a> before a job interview or presentation has the same effects, making lower-level processes more automatic and freeing up conscious processing<\/a> capacity to help you respond thoughtfully to those tricky questions.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Rehearse \u201cMind Reading\u201d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    In addition to practicing fast decision-making, Gladwell says you should practice reading the social environment. Here he focuses on learning to pick up the fleeting, unconscious \u201cmicroexpressions\u201d that people make that betray their true thoughts and emotions<\/a>. Gladwell calls this \u201cmind reading.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We can get better at understanding others, and consequently make more accurate snap judgments about them, by practicing reading people\u2019s facial expressions.<\/strong> Let\u2019s take a closer look at how we thin-slice people, or make judgments about them by reading (or failing to read) their minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Humans are highly social animals. Our brains are tuned to cues that can help us navigate the complex social world. An important part of this is being able to make good guesses about what\u2019s going on in other people\u2019s minds. (Shortform note: In psychology, this ability to construct a model of someone else\u2019s mind is called \u201cTheory of Mind<\/a>.\u201d It includes keeping track of the other person\u2019s knowledge\u2014do they have the same information as I do?\u2014as well as guessing at their emotional state.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Part of our fluency in mind-reading comes from our ability to use others\u2019 facial expressions to infer their personality and predict their behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Microexpressions are the hardest expressions to catch. They\u2019re almost <\/em>imperceptible, lasting a fraction of a second. You might be good at broadly controlling the expressions your face makes, but you can\u2019t control these involuntary expressions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This is how we thin-slice people\u2014our unconscious minds make note of subtle muscle movements in the face that are too fleeting for our conscious minds to detect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    (Shortform note: The effectiveness of analyzing microexpressions, especially to detect lies, is controversial. First, lies aren\u2019t always associated with microexpressions: One study found them in only around 20% of participants who had been instructed to mask or neutralize their natural expressions.<\/a> When microexpressions did occur, they were often inconsistent with the emotion being hidden.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    4. Avoid Making Snap Decisions When You\u2019re Stressed<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    As Gladwell notes, our ability to read facial signals and body language<\/a> is enormously sophisticated. Most of the time, we\u2019re really good at reading people\u2019s minds by subconsciously picking up on subtle signals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Still, mistakes happen all the time. We get into arguments and hurt others because we misinterpret what they\u2019re feeling or thinking. <\/strong>Gladwell speculates that two things can affect our accuracy when recognizing the facial expressions of others: rushed decisions and underlying stress.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Even split-second decisions take a few moments. Thin-slicing<\/a> appears to be so fast it\u2019s automatic, but it\u2019s not.<\/strong> In the few seconds it takes to make a snap judgment, we\u2019re gathering information<\/a> and weighing it. When we don\u2019t have time to properly process information, we fall back on stereotypes. Reactions based on stereotypes are the lowest-quality snap judgments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Gladwell says that slowing down helps us make better decisions, even quick decisions<\/strong>. Waiting a beat can make all the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Rehearse Being in Stressful Situations<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    How can you avoid making bad decisions<\/a> in stressful situations? Gladwell suggests that you practice making decisions in environments that mimic stressful situations<\/strong>. For example, rehearse an upcoming job interview or presentation in an environment that mirrors the event as closely as possible. Consider factors like the time of day, the people involved, and what you\u2019ll wear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    These drills allow you the time to figure out the most appropriate response to the stressor. Then, when you\u2019re in a moment of stress, you\u2019ll have practiced the desired response so often that it\u2019s automatic.<\/strong> You can rely on your unconscious mind in the moment rather than having to make a rational decision. This is a way to inoculate yourself against stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Gladwell describes a security firm that has bodyguards repeatedly encounter an aggressive dog and tracks their heart rates (an indicator of stress level). The first time they confront the dog, their heart rates are 175, so high that their vision is impaired. By the fourth time, their heart rates are usually around 110 and they\u2019re able to function under pressure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    (Shortform note: This echoes SEAL commanding officer Richard Marcinko\u2019s famous piece of advice: \u201cThe more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat.\u201d If you\u2019re in a stressful situation and you haven\u2019t had a chance to practice, consider using the STOP mental checklist<\/a>: S<\/strong>top what you\u2019re doing; T<\/strong>ake a few deep breaths and center yourself; O<\/strong>bserve your mind, body, and emotions; P<\/strong>roceed with the action, taking into account what you\u2019ve observed.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Why do they say “trust your gut”? How do you know when your gut is right? Gut decisions can be advantageous in some circumstances, but they can lead you astray in others. Malcolm Gladwell suggests that you can make better instinctive decisions by providing the unconscious mind with structure. This involves rehearsing your desired spontaneous responses and developing rules that you can fall back on in times of stress. Here’s how you can “train your gut” to make better decisions, according to Gladwell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":42955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,43],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-62866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-psychology","category-self-improvement","tag-blink","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nGut Decisions: 4 Tips for Making Better Choices - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gut decisions can be advantageous, but they can also lead you astray. 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