What's the best way to make a decision?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science

4.8 • 985 Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2021

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Life is full of choices, from the mundane (like what to wear today) to the critical (how should we deal with the pandemic?). So how can we make the best decisions? That’s what listener David wants to know.

To investigate, Caroline Steel learns how being smarter doesn’t necessarily make you a good decision maker. She speaks to researchers about the importance of ‘gut feelings’ – and how certain people with no intuition whatsoever can struggle to make choices. She also learns why it’s easier to give advice to other people than to follow it yourself, and how we can work together to make the best decisions in a group.

Presenter: Caroline Steel Producer: Anand Jagatia

Contributors: Wändy Bruin de Bruin - Professor of Public Policy, Psychology and Behavioural Science, University of Southern California, USA David Robson, science journalist and author Valerie van Mulukom, Assistant Professor, Coventry University, UK Liz Steel Igor Grossmann, Associate Professor of psychology, University of Waterloo, Canada Anita Williams Woolley associate professor of organisational behaviour and theory, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

Transcript

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0:00.0	Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of
0:07.0	Happiness Podcast.
0:08.0	For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want
0:14.4	to share that science with you.
0:16.1	And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley.
0:19.4	I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that
0:25.4	calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. Life is full of choices. What did you pick to wear today? Do you drive or cycle to work?
0:44.0	Should you eat that donut?
0:46.0	Reply to that text?
0:48.0	Take that job?
0:50.0	Those are just a few of the 35,000 decisions we make every single day.
0:57.0	Some mundane, some critically important.
1:00.0	That works out at around one decision every two seconds.
1:05.0	The most recent one you made being the excellent decision to listen to crowd science from the BBC World Service,
1:10.0	the show that answers your science questions.
1:13.0	I'm Caroline Steele and this week we're tackling a question from Crowd Science listener David.
1:18.0	Hi Crowd Science.
1:20.0	I'm David from the UK.
1:22.0	My question is, how can we make the best decisions possible?
1:26.4	Thanks David. So how can we make the best decisions?
1:30.8	Is it by being smarter? Relying on our intuition and gut feelings?
1:35.0	Or maybe it's by putting our emotions completely to one side.
	...

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