All day, every day, we make decisions. Some are so small we barely think about them, such as what to have for breakfast, or which route will avoid the most traffic on the way to work.

Others are more consequential, whether to take a new job or how to spend or save our money. And some decisions can have life or death consequences,

such as whether to get a vaccine or evacuate ahead of a hurricane. Over the past several decades,

psychologists and other behavioral science researchers have become increasingly interested in

understanding how people make decisions like these, why we so often make bad decisions,

and how even seemingly small changes in the way that choices are explained and presented

can make a big difference in the decisions that people make.

So what have researchers learned about decision making?

Why do people make bad decisions?

Do bad decisions happen when people don't have enough information or when they're overloaded

with too much?

How do behavioral scientists define a bad decision anyway?

And how can decision researchers' findings best be deployed in the real world to make a positive

difference in people's lives.

Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association

that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills.

We have two guests today. First is Dr. Lace Padilla, an assistant professor of cognitive and information sciences at the University of California, Merced. Dr.

Padilla studies how people use data visualizations to make real-world decisions with life or

death consequences in areas including hurricane evacuations and vaccine

uptake. Her lab's mission is to help people make the best possible judgments about their

health and safety by developing and testing new ways to visualize and communicate complex data.

Our second guest today is Dr. Hannah Perfecto. Dr. Perfecto is an assistant professor

...