173 checked facts

Decision-making

Everything on this site about decision-making — each one naming the study behind it.

You overestimate your future happiness based on your current state.
The 'hot-cold empathy gap' explains why you shop for groceries when hungry and purchase food you later regret.…
Every decision you make is shaped by the first number.
The study was published in 'Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin', not 'Psychological Science'.…
Your brain prefers a simple solution over a perfect one.
In 1956, Herbert Simon identified that people search for an option that meets a threshold rather than the mathematical…
You judge the morality of an action by its success.
Observers systematically rate the quality of a decision based on whether it produced a positive or negative outcome.…
You accept risks more when they are presented as gains.
The framing of a decision as a 'save' versus a 'loss' shifts your tolerance for risk, even when the math is identical.…
You mistake the ease of processing for objective truth.
People rate statements as more accurate simply because the font is easier to read.…
You stay silent to keep the group happy.
The desire for consensus in decision-making groups often overrides the realistic appraisal of alternatives.…
Your certainty is usually a better measure of ego.
When asked to provide a range that will contain the truth, people consistently provide estimates that are too narrow.…
The complexity of a task makes you procrastinate less.
Parkinson's Law of Triviality states that the time spent on any item of an agenda is in inverse proportion to the amou…
Your internal criteria decide what is signal and noise.
Signal detection theory posits that your response criterion depends on your current decision threshold.…
You cannot stop yourself from imagining an impossible scenario.
Counterfactual thinking is your brain's persistent attempt to simulate 'what if' scenarios to understand outcomes.…
You don't know what you want until you see it.
Preference construction theory demonstrates that people do not have fixed internal values; instead, they build their p…
You are more creative when the font is harder to read.
Cognitive disfluency—the experience of difficulty in processing information—can trigger more deliberate, analytic thin…
You see yourself as less capable than you are.
When tasks are difficult, people consistently exhibit a worse-than-average effect, underestimating their relative perf…
Writing down your preferences makes you choose the wrong thing.
A 1993 study showed that participants who listed reasons for their preferences were less satisfied with their choices …
Your decision-making changes when you are distracted by numbers.
In a 1999 study by Shiv and Fedorikhin, participants holding a 7-digit number (high cognitive load) chose chocolate ca…
You rate a choice as better after you have already made it.
A 1956 study demonstrated that participants immediately increased their preference for a chosen item and decreased it …
You care more about one victim than a hundred.
In a 2007 study, people donated significantly more money to help a specific individual than to a statistical group of …
You value things more once you possess them.
The mere ownership effect is the finding that items are rated as more attractive simply because they are labeled as be…
You struggle to accept information that changes your mind.
Motivated skepticism is the tendency to scrutinize counter-attitudinal information more intensely than information tha…
Groups make riskier decisions than individuals alone.
Group polarization describes the finding that group discussion often leads members to advocate for more extreme positi…
You are worse at predicting your own behavior.
The introspection illusion is the tendency to trust one's own introspections as a reliable source of information while…
You make decisions based on the first thing you hear.
A 1974 experiment showed that asking participants if the population of a city was greater than 5 million or 200 thousa…
You value things more when you think they required effort.
A 2004 study showed that participants valued the same physical objects more when they were told the creator struggled …
You predict future happiness based on your current physical state.
The empathy gap describes your inability to understand how your decisions change when you move between a 'hot' state o…
Your preferences change based on the choices you ignore.
Post-decision dissonance reduction causes you to overvalue your chosen option to maintain cognitive consistency.…
You ignore the math when certainty is on the table.
The 'pseudocertainty' effect explains why people choose a certain, smaller gain over a larger, statistically superior …
You perform differently when the task requires effort.
The effort-accuracy trade-off shows that you adjust your cognitive effort based on how much accuracy you believe the t…
You avoid thinking deeply even when you could.
Cognitive reflection is the tendency to override an intuitive, incorrect response in favor of a more deliberate, accur…
Your best decisions happen when you stop thinking hard.
A 2006 study by Dijksterhuis proposed that complex decisions are made more effectively when distracted, though these f…
You avoid information that makes you feel bad.
The ostrich effect refers to the tendency for individuals to avoid information that might be negative or disappointing…
Sometimes you choose ignorance over useful information.
A 2010 review found that individuals intentionally avoid available information if they believe that data will threaten…
You feel more confident in a decision after it is made.
Choice-supportive bias drives the brain to emphasize the positives of a chosen option and ignore its drawbacks post-se…
You fear losing more than you value gaining.
Prospect theory demonstrates that losses are weighted more heavily than equivalent gains.…
You are less rational when you are hungry.
The theory that self-control is a limited metabolic resource fueled by blood glucose has been widely challenged and fa…
Your brain prefers simple patterns over complex reality.
The 'Representativeness Heuristic' leads you to judge the probability of an event by how much it resembles your mental…
You are smarter when you slow down deliberately.
The Cognitive Reflection Test predicts performance on logical tasks by measuring impulse inhibition.…
You twist evidence to support a chosen path.
The study titled 'Biased interpretation of evidence' by Carlson and Russo, which demonstrates how people distort new i…
You make more rational decisions in a foreign language.
A 2012 study found that people are significantly less biased when making decisions in a second language.…
You make more ethical decisions in the morning.
A 2014 study found that people are more likely to behave dishonestly as the day progresses.…
You fear losing money more than gaining it.
Loss aversion is the tendency to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring equivalent gains, with a median loss aversion c…
Your confidence in a decision comes after the act.
Post-decision dissonance reduction causes people to retroactively inflate the value of a choice they just made.…
You prefer a smaller reward that is certain.
Research shows people systematically choose lower-value, certain rewards over higher-value options involving uncertain…
You prioritize trivial tasks because they offer immediate completion.
The mere urgency effect shows people choose tasks with shorter deadlines over tasks with higher rewards.…
You interpret ambiguity based on your current physical comfort.
Hard chairs make people more 'stubborn' and 'unyielding' during negotiations compared to soft seating.…
You avoid making choices when you have too much data.
A 2000 study by Iyengar and Lepper suggested that, in specific conditions, limited choice sets can lead to higher conv…
Your choices often follow the crowd's momentum.
The probability of an individual adopting a behavior increases as more people do the same, because individuals use oth…
You react differently to the same information framed differently.
The framing effect, where choice is influenced by whether information is presented as gains or losses, was famously ex…
You can be nudged by an irrelevant third option.
Consumers are more likely to pick a higher-priced item when a slightly worse version is presented as a decoy.…
You decide based on feelings, then justify with logic.
A 2000 study by Finucane, Alhakami, Slovic, and Johnson demonstrated that people evaluate the risks and benefits of an…
The first number you hear dictates your entire decision.
People estimating the value of an item are consistently pulled toward the first number they are given, even if it is i…
You believe you are safer from misfortune than everyone else.
The optimism bias leads people to underestimate their personal risk of experiencing negative events like divorce or il…
You value an object more once it becomes yours.
The endowment effect shows that ownership increases your valuation of an item, even if you acquired it moments ago.…
You will invent reasons for a choice you never made.
In a 2005 experiment, participants provided confabulated explanations in approximately 82% of the trials where they fa…
Your brain prioritizes immediate comfort over future success.
A 1981 study found that pigeons consistently prefer a small reward now over a larger one in the future.…
A random number changes how you value a price.
A 1974 study found that people estimated the percentage of African nations in the UN differently depending on a random…
Your emotional reaction precedes your logical assessment.
The affect heuristic is a mental shortcut where your current emotion—rather than logic—dictates how you evaluate the b…
You react differently to the same information depending on delivery.
Decisions are systematically skewed by whether options are presented as potential gains or potential losses, a phenome…
You believe you can influence outcomes based on pure chance.
A 1975 study found that people were willing to bet more money on a game of luck if they were the ones rolling the dice…
You overestimate your ability to manage your future moods.
Projection bias is the tendency to assume your future self will have the same tastes, desires, and emotional states as…
Your first impression of a price sets the internal standard.
Tversky and Kahneman found that participants' estimates of unknown quantities are consistently pulled toward an arbitr…
You choose the middle option because it looks balanced.
The compromise effect is the tendency to avoid extremes when choosing between items, favoring the option that sits in …
You remember your past choices as better than they were.
Choice-supportive bias is the tendency to retroactively attribute positive attributes to an option you selected and ne…
The same information changes your choice depending on context.
The framing effect refers to the tendency for decisions to be influenced by whether information is presented as a gain…
You prefer the way things are by default.
The status quo bias describes the tendency to maintain a current state because the potential losses of changing are pe…
You seek unnecessary information before making simple choices.
Individuals often request extra information before deciding, even when that information has no impact on the outcome.…
An anecdote outweighs data when you make a judgment.
You consistently prioritize specific, vivid information over broader, more accurate statistical trends.…
Your first impression of a number dictates your judgment.
The initial, often arbitrary value you are presented with exerts a pull on all subsequent estimates.…
You judge risk by what you recall easily.
While the availability heuristic was indeed defined by Tversky and Kahneman in 1973, the specific study comparing perc…
You overestimate how long your misery will last.
People consistently display an impact bias, overestimating the duration of their emotional responses to future events.…
Asking someone about their plans makes them more likely to act.
The mere measurement effect demonstrates that asking people if they will perform an action increases the probability t…
You misremember why you chose what you chose.
Once a decision is made, you unconsciously amplify the positive aspects of your choice and ignore its downsides.…
You are far more certain than you are accurate.
Overprecision is the excessive certainty you feel regarding the accuracy of your own beliefs.…
You suffer most when you imagine how things might be.
Counterfactual thinking is the tendency to mentally simulate alternative outcomes for past events.…
Your mood determines your assessment of objective risk.
The affect heuristic leads you to perceive risks as lower when you are in a positive state.…
You feel less satisfied when you have many options.
The paradox of choice shows that an abundance of options often leads to paralysis and regret.…
You rate common risks as rarer than they are.
The availability heuristic leads you to judge probability based on memory, not data.…
You exaggerate the importance of your current life focus.
The focusing illusion occurs when you place too much weight on one aspect of life while ignoring others.…
Your choice changes based on how the risk is framed.
The framing effect, as demonstrated by Tversky and Kahneman (1981), shows that people react to choices differently dep…
You judge objects as more valuable if they are scarce.
The scarcity heuristic leads people to place a higher value on items that are perceived as rare or difficult to obtain…
Asking if you will act makes you more likely to.
The mere measurement effect describes a phenomenon where measuring intentions may influence subsequent behavior, thoug…
You are terrible at predicting your feelings in a cold state.
The hot-cold empathy gap prevents you from accurately anticipating how you will behave when you are hungry, angry, or …
Your first impression of a price anchors every later decision.
The anchoring effect is a cognitive bias where the first piece of information offered influences all subsequent judgme…
You align your views to minimize conflict within groups.
Groupthink occurs when the desire for harmony or conformity in a decision-making group results in an irrational or dys…
You trust vague descriptions that seem specifically about you.
A 1948 experiment showed that people rate generic personality assessments as highly accurate when they believe they ar…
Your memories ignore the duration of your past experiences.
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP).…
You take action even when it is useless.
In high-pressure situations, people often prefer any action over doing nothing, even if inaction is safer.…
You finish books you hate because you started them.
The sunk cost fallacy predisposes you to continue an endeavor based on past investments.…
Your ability to make good choices erodes by evening.
Decision fatigue suggests that quality of judgment declines after repeated choices, a phenomenon famously illustrated …
You value a small reward today over more tomorrow.
Hyperbolic discounting shows that as a reward becomes more distant, its subjective value drops sharply.…
Asking yourself why you like something makes you like it less.
A 1993 study showed that analyzing your own preferences can lead to choices that decrease your long-term satisfaction …
You falsely believe you predicted the outcome.
Hindsight bias causes you to view events as inevitable after they have occurred.…
You value an object more because you own it.
The endowment effect describes a persistent discrepancy between willingness-to-accept (WTA) and willingness-to-pay (WT…
You think your happiness depends on one specific circumstance.
Focalism is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which one specific event will impact your long-term emotional s…
You want what you are told you cannot have.
Psychological reactance is a motivational state that occurs when your freedom to choose is threatened or eliminated.…
You feel more attraction when your heart rate is high.
The misattribution of arousal causes you to interpret unrelated physical excitement as romantic interest.…
You reach different conclusions depending on how options are presented.
The framing effect describes how your decision-making shifts based on whether an outcome is described in terms of gain…
Your mind is trapped by the first number you hear.
The anchoring effect causes individuals to rely too heavily on the initial piece of information offered when making su…
You value items more just because they are rare.
A 1975 study showed that participants rated cookies as more desirable when they were presented in a nearly empty jar.…
You assume your future self will have your current desires.
Projection bias is the tendency to overestimate how much your future preferences will align with your present state.…
You remember the intensity of an experience, not duration.
The peak-end rule explains how you evaluate past events based on their most intense moment and their ending.…
You keep finishing the book you dislike reading.
The tendency to follow through on an investment is often driven by the cost already incurred.…
You choose the option based on how it is described.
The framing effect describes how the presentation of information influences your perception of the risks and rewards i…
You interpret early information as a fixed anchor.
The anchoring bias describes how the first number or piece of data you receive heavily influences all subsequent estim…
You are more troubled by almost winning than losing.
Counterfactual thinking explains why a bronze medalist is often happier than a silver medalist.…
You unconsciously prefer items that share your own initials.
In a 2002 study, researchers proposed that people are disproportionately likely to live in cities or pursue careers th…
Your ability to make sound choices depletes throughout the day.
While the 2011 Danziger study identified a correlation between judicial rulings and meal breaks, the 'decision fatigue…
You ignore the context while fixating on the outcome.
Focalism causes you to overestimate how much a single event will influence your future happiness.…
You judge inaction more leniently than harmful action.
The omission bias is the tendency to view harmful inaction as less morally wrong than harmful action with the same out…
You reject good ideas because you did not create them.
The 'not-invented-here' bias causes people to devalue external solutions in favor of internal ones.…
You consume more when portion sizes are labeled as units.
The unit bias explains why people eat or use more when a quantity is presented as a single item.…
One new purchase triggers a cycle of constant upgrades.
The Diderot effect describes how a single acquisition often leads to a spiral of consumption.…
You accept the pre-selected option far too often.
In Germany (opt-in), 12% of the population have registered as donors, while in Austria (opt-out), 99% are classified a…
You keep reading this book because you started.
Investing time or money in a failing venture makes you paradoxically more likely to continue investing further.…
Your choice depends entirely on how options are phrased.
In the 1981 study, 72% of participants chose a certain outcome of saving 200 out of 600 lives over a risky option with…
You believe your effort influences random outcomes.
A 1975 study found people bet more on lottery tickets when they selected the numbers themselves.…
You judge the quality of a choice by its outcome.
Outcome bias is the tendency to evaluate the intelligence of a decision based on the final result rather than the qual…
You prefer things to stay exactly as they are.
Status quo bias describes a preference for the current state of affairs, even when changing it would provide a clear a…
A third option changes what you choose entirely.
A 1982 study found that adding a clearly inferior third option increases the likelihood that people will choose the or…
You feel a frantic need to move during static crises.
The 2007 study by Bar-Eli et al. demonstrates that goalkeepers choose to jump to the side even though staying in the c…
You assume your future self will share your current desires.
The 2003 paper by Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin established the theoretical framework for 'projection bias' that …
Your self-control is exhausted by simple mental math.
In a 1999 study, participants who were asked to memorize a seven-digit number were about 1.5 times more likely to choo…
You feel a frantic urge to act during uncertainty.
In a study of professional soccer penalty kicks, goalkeepers were statistically more likely to dive left or right than…
Your ability to make good choices erodes all day.
A 2011 study observed that judges granted fewer favorable decisions as a decision session progressed, with rates retur…
You ignore information that challenges your existing beliefs.
A 1979 study found that participants discounted evidence that contradicted their opinions while accepting flawed evide…
You think your past self knew more than it did.
A 1975 study by Baruch Fischhoff demonstrated that knowing an outcome significantly impairs the ability to accurately …
You value immediate satisfaction more than future success.
Delay discounting is the tendency to prefer smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards. Hyperbolic discou…
Confidence is often a poor proxy for actual competence.
The overconfidence effect is the tendency for people to overestimate the accuracy of their own knowledge and the succe…
You persist in bad decisions because of past costs.
The sunk cost fallacy describes the tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has …
You do not remember an experience by its total duration.
A 1996 study showed that retrospective evaluations of pain are determined by the peak intensity and the final moment.…
You prefer a sure gain, even when a gamble pays more.
The pseudocertainty effect leads people to choose an outcome perceived as certain over a probabilistic one, even when …
You consistently overestimate your ability to handle immediate temptation.
The restraint bias is a pattern where individuals overestimate their self-control and consequently put themselves in s…
You judge past decisions by their results, not their logic.
The outcome bias causes people to retrospectively evaluate a decision as poor if the result was unfavorable, even if t…
You think your future self will share your current tastes.
The projection bias is your systematic failure to predict how your future preferences will change based on your curren…
You value the things you own more than identical objects.
The mere ownership effect demonstrates that merely possessing an item increases its perceived value significantly.…
You judge how likely something is by your memory.
The ease with which examples come to mind determines your probability assessment.…
You prioritize immediate satisfaction over long-term gain every time.
People often choose a smaller, immediate reward over a larger, delayed one, but their preferences frequently reverse i…
You hold losing investments far longer than winning ones.
A 1985 study found that investors are significantly more likely to sell a stock that has gained value than one that ha…
Random numbers influence your estimate of an unknown value.
A 1974 experiment demonstrated that participants' estimates for geopolitical statistics were significantly skewed by a…
You are statistically likely to choose the pre-selected option.
A 2003 study of organ donation found that countries with an opt-out policy had nearly 100% participation compared to 1…
Your brain ignores most of an experience to save energy.
In a 1996 study, participants judged the total unpleasantness of a colonoscopy based heavily on the peak discomfort an…
You are a terrible judge of your future self.
A 2003 study found that people systematically underestimate how much their future preferences will change based on the…
You avoid the unknown even when it offers rewards.
Ambiguity aversion describes the tendency to prefer options with known probabilities over options with unknown probabi…
Your choice changes when an irrelevant option appears.
The decoy effect occurs when your preference between two choices shifts after a third, inferior option is introduced.…
You decide based on how data is phrased.
In their 1981 paper, Tversky and Kahneman demonstrated that the framing of outcomes as gains or losses influences pref…
You continue painful projects to avoid admitting loss.
Individuals invest more time and resources into a failing project simply because they have already invested in it.…
You judge harmful inaction as less severe than action.
Research indicates that people rate harmful consequences resulting from inaction as more acceptable than identical har…
Your ability to make sound decisions erodes throughout the day.
A 2011 study of over 1,000 judicial rulings found that parole boards were significantly more likely to grant favorable…
You retroactively invent reasons to prefer your choice.
A 2007 study found that people misremember the features of rejected options to make their chosen one seem superior.…
Your initial estimate is a trap you set.
A 1974 study showed that people's final estimates for unknown quantities are heavily skewed by the first arbitrary num…
You fear risk more when the outlook is positive.
People show a strong preference for certainty when a positive outcome is likely, even when a riskier option offers a h…
You believe you have finally finished changing your personality.
In a 2013 study of 7,500 adults, participants consistently underestimated how much their personality, values, and pref…
The pain of losing is stronger than the joy of winning.
Prospect theory demonstrates that losses are weighted more heavily than equivalent gains, a phenomenon known as loss a…
You continue losing ventures because of the investment already made.
A 1985 study found that people are more likely to continue investing in a failing project if they have already committ…
You value money differently depending on where it came from.
A 1985 study found that people treat funds differently—and are more likely to spend 'windfall' gains—even when the amo…
You feel more in control when you participate in luck.
In a 1975 study, participants perceived a game based entirely on chance as a skill-based challenge simply because they…
You assess risks as lower because you feel good.
A 2000 study demonstrated that affective evaluation of an activity, influenced by information framing, causes inverse …
You seek useless information just to feel more certain.
A body of research in judgment and decision-making, discussed in Jonathan Baron's 1988 book Thinking and Deciding, ind…
A third option changes which of two items you prefer.
A 1982 study demonstrated that adding a clearly inferior third option makes a more expensive or premium item appear mo…
You assume your future self wants what you want now.
A 2003 theoretical paper by Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin formalized the concept of 'projection bias,' building o…
You are convinced the outcome was predictable all along.
A 1975 study found that people consistently overestimate their ability to have foreseen an event once they know how it…
You would not notice if your life changed suddenly.
A 2005 experiment demonstrated that people fail to identify when their expressed preferences are switched by an experi…
The first number you hear dictates your future estimates.
A 1974 study showed that initial, irrelevant numbers significantly bias subsequent numerical estimations.…
You judge decisions by the result, not the process.
A 1988 study found that observers rate a high-risk decision as more intelligent if it leads to success than if it resu…
Thinking about an object makes its importance grow.
In a 1998 study published in Psychological Science, Schkade and Kahneman demonstrated that people fall victim to a 'fo…
You subconsciously prefer the letters in your own name.
While Pelham et al. (2002) published findings suggesting implicit egotism, those results have been widely criticized f…
Ease of memory leads us to overestimate rare events.
A 1973 study showed that people judge the frequency of an event by how easily they can recall examples from memory.…
Moving to a warmer climate rarely improves long-term happiness.
A 1998 survey found that while Midwesterners expected Californians to be happier, there was no significant difference …
You can be convinced you chose the rejected option.
In a 2005 study, 75% of participants failed to notice when researchers swapped their preferred photograph for the one …
Doing a good deed makes us more likely to cheat later.
A 2010 study found that participants who bought green products were more likely to lie and steal in a subsequent task.…
Having too many choices makes us buy nothing.
A 2000 study found that while 24 choices of jam attracted more onlookers, only 3% bought any, compared to 30% when off…
We overvalue things simply because we helped build them.
A 2011 study showed that participants valued self-assembled furniture as highly as items built by experts.…
Your memory of an event ignores its duration.
In a landmark 1996 study, patients rated a longer, painful medical procedure as less unpleasant simply because the fin…