What should I wear, what should I eat, should I apply for the job? Vegan or with meat? Sneakers or high heels, shirt or sweater? Every day we make numerous decisions. Sometimes we should just trust our gut feeling.
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In general, some people find it easier to make decisions than others. They simply trust their first intuition – their gut feeling. Whether you achieve the desired goal scientists from Poland have dealt with this. In several small experiments, the research team found that people who make decisions quickly do not necessarily make the better choices.
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However, according to the research results, quick decision-makers have greater self-confidence and, in retrospect, are more likely to believe that their decision was the right one. Deutschlandfunk-Nova reporter Martin Krinner applies the results of the studies to everyday decisions.
He finds that we often put off decisions for days despite good comparisons. He takes the purchase of a new mobile phone as an example: even days of deliberation does not necessarily lead to a decision.
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“Even a person who approaches it very rationally and weighs up the pros and cons of buying a new cell phone may not come to a decision after a few days.”
Martin Krinner, Deutschlandfunk Nova reporter
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Neuroscientist Henning Beck says: “If you’ve dealt with a problem intensively beforehand, you may know everything about it. You’ve familiarized yourself with it.” If we still can’t make up our minds at the end, then we should just take a card or flip a coin.
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So Beck thinks that we should let chance decide for us. Because often we would already have an idea which side of the coin is up after landing. The neuroscientist explains that this is because in many cases we have already made a decision. In these cases, we would only have to consciously allow the decision to be made.
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But in life we make profound decisions almost every day. It’s about, for example, our professional future or the choice of an apprenticeship or a course of study. Should we also trust our gut feeling here?
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Risk-taking keeps society going
The question cannot be answered that easily, explains Ralph Hertwig from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. Because it also has to do with our willingness to take risks, which is different for every person. The psychologist says that society needs a certain willingness to take risks so that it doesn’t stand still. Society would stagnate without people willing to take risks.
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“Without risk-taking, people would never go abroad and say that they were gaining new experiences there. Even the decision to go to university requires a certain risk-taking.”
Ralph Hertwig, staff member at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
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Back to the research results from Warsaw: according to the Polish researchers, an inclination to gut feelings can help to better pursue the big goals in life. “With the right attitude, the danger of despairing from setbacks is smaller,” adds reporter Martin Krinner.
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There are no decisions without a gut feeling
Researcher Tobias Maldei from the University of Trier is of the opinion that people cannot make decisions without their gut feeling. In his view, every decision is likely to be emotionally tinged in some way, no matter how rational we approach it. “Our feelings influence us, and memories, for example, are linked to rational, analytical decisions. So we can’t think completely analytically,” he says
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Especially in situations in which we have to take many experiences into account at the same time for our decisions, it is possible that we miss aspects. “For example, it may be that I don’t even know some aspects. Then it makes sense to listen to what the gut says,” researcher Tobias Maldei summarizes his observation.
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