HOW DO WE REALLY MAKE DECISIONS?

By: Toby McDonald; Producer, Horizon (How you really make decisions)

Published: BBC NEWS; 24 February 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26258662

Level of Difficulty: **

BEFORE YOU READ

·         Access the online edition of the text and click “invisible gorilla test” in the text. On this sight, there are a number of perception tests, which you should try out. Make a note of how you do and try to think of reasons.

QUESTIONS

1. Read down as far as Professor Daniel Kahneman. It is stated in this section that we are probably wrong if we imagine we have complete control over.....................................
2. What alerted Prof. Kahneman to the fact that we may need to rethink our current beliefs about how the mind works? The fact that.............................................................................
3. What makes “the logical part of your mind” inefficient? The fact that................................
4. An old lady who is walking down the street feels she needs to stop every time she wishes to speak to her companion because............................................................................................
5. In what way is the intuitive mind different from the attentive mind?
6. Why is the intuitive mind known as the stranger within?
7. What conclusion can we draw from the paragraph beginning “Most of the time”? Where else could this conclusion have been placed?
8. Most insurance companies will allow you to collect your savings after ten years, before the end of your contract. The policy holder who goes along with this gets much less money nevertheless most opt to get their savings rather than wait. Why? Why do insurance companies make this offer?
9. Why do we like to have litarary or political discussions with people who see things the same way? Due to..............................................................................................................................
10. Read as far as Dan Ariely. What misconception concerning decision making is mentioned in the text? He explains our predicament by pointing out that we are strongly influenced by...
11. Dan Ariely claims that some serious economic problems could have been avoided if we had taken into consideration the fact that...................................................................................
12. Dr. Santos believes that trying to change our cognitive biases would be futile because.............
13. What does “That” refer to in the sentence “That’s my hope”?

WRITING TASK

Use notes you made while reading the text to write a concise summary of the text. Remember you need to cover all the main points in as few words as possible.

HOW DO WE REALLY MAKE DECISIONS KEY AND TEACHER’S NOTES

This is a relatively simple text about quite a serious subject: the way our minds work and for this reason, it is wonderful. The perception tests at the beginning will provide a wonderful warm up. As for the writing task, the summary, it is spot on; this is a wonderful text to summarize.

1. The intuitive part of our mind
2. We all make systematic errors
3. It is slow, requires a great deal of energy and extremely lazy.
4. Her attentive mind cannot attend to both tasks.
5. It is a faster way of thinking, is extremely powerful and totally hidden.
6. Because you have no idea it is actually responsible for most of the things you say, do, think and believe.
7. If we think we have reasons for what we believe, that is often a mistake. Our beliefs and our wishes and our hopes are not always anchored in reasons. At the beginning of the paragraph beginning “Most”.
8. Because the present bias causes us to pay attention to what is happening now but not to worry about the future.  Companies know this and wish to make a profit.
9. Confirmation bias.
10. We all make rational decisions; loss aversion
11. We are influnced by loss aversion; OR the traditional economic view is wrong; OR we don’t all make rational decisions.
12. They are deep rooted in our evolutionary past.
13. Building a world that is compatible with this;that gets us to make better decisions rather than worse decisions.