Decision Fatigue

Decision Fatigue is a cognitive bias.

wait, lets rewind a little- what is a cognitive bias?

Cognitive bias is a systematic error in making judgments and thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world around them that affects the decisions that they make. Cognitive biases are often a result of your brain’s attempt to simplify information processing.

So, while we would like to believe we are objective and rational, and generally make good decisions in our lives. Unfortunately, this is not always true, we are all prone to using heuristics and having cognitive biases which lead us to make irrational and incorrect decisions.

In this article we look at Decision Fatigue. Let’s find out what it is and how it affects us.

Decision Fatigue

Remember lining up for viva during the Board exams and how all the students were hoping and vying to be placed towards the end?

They don’t know it (as we didn’t), but students are trying to use this phenomenon of decision fatigue to their advantage. They know intuitively that by the end of a long day, of continuously taking viva of students, the external examiner will get tired, and not pay too much attention to his question, or the answers.

Decision fatigue is a phenomenon, that occurs when individuals make worse decisions as time goes on. Decision fatigue is the feeling of getting overwhelmed when faced with too many choices. Basically, decisions require energy, and if overwhelmed we experience mental fatigue, at which point we start making irrational trade-offs, or taking mental shortcuts.

Signs of this fatigue include- putting off decisions for later, deciding something impulsively, or not managing to decide at all.

Situations

Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper, saw that decision fatigue can occur when people are given too many choices. In a grocery store when presented with twenty four samples of jam for, the shoppers bought lesser jam than when the samples provided were only six.
We may have experienced this when buying a gift for someone we don’t know too well. Since the choices are unlimited, we find ourselves unable to decide what to buy.
Judges are also known to experience decision fatigue. Unsurprising as they have to take important and large number of decisions almost everyday. Researchers found that judges were more likely to give parole when they have heard cases in the morning than at the end of the day. Mental fatigue that occurs when we know the decisions we take carries weight and try to think carefully through all factors of a situation. This leads us to experience Decision Fatigue.
Decision fatigue can also impact self control. This was shown by Jean Twenge while working at the Baumeister laboratory. His test confirmed that the control group who faced decision-making questions were more affected by decision fatigue and had less self-control than the other other group.

Why

Decision fatigue occurs for various reasons, like:

mental exhaustion faced by trade-offs, This can be due to the amount of decisions taken, or the complexity of decisions we had to take.
glucose levels: Decisions require energy, and if our glucose levels are low we will not have the required energy to take decisions.
Moods: moods can also affect the decisions we make. In general a happier mood gives us a stronger willpower to make more decisions than when we are frustrated or upset.

Avoiding Decision Fatigue.

Individuals can avoid decision fatigue by practicing self care along with self awareness, managing glucose levels and resting.
Recognizing and rewarding yourself for making good decisions will also help manage moods and keep your outlook more positive towards making decisions.
Planning ahead are also good techniques. There are several decisions we have to take everyday. For example Mark Zuckerberg has been seen wearing the same type of clothes everyday. We can assume he categorized the decisions from important to least important and made the one he felt as least important to be automatic. We can do the same in our own lives. I am not suggesting we wear the same clothes everyday. But we can prioritize our decisions, make the ones least important to us automatic and save our energy for the more important decisions.
Have a pre-existing system to prioritize your tasks and choices, create routines for yourself. and planning for frequent breaks in between. This would make some decisions automatic and require less energy.

We have taken a look at how “Decision Fatigue” affects us. But, there are many more biases that can overwhelm our rational thought processes. So read on to other biases to make more intentional and informed choices.

References

“Why do we make worse decisions at the end of the day”, https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/decision-fatigue/

Johnson Jon, “What is decision fatigue,” https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/decision-fatigue#effects

Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (2000). When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 995–1006. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.6.995

Baumeister, Roy F.; Vohs, Kathleen D. (2003). “Willpower, Choice, and Self-Control”. In Loewenstein, George; Read, Daniel; Baumeister, Roy F. (eds.). Time and Decision: Economic and Psychological Perspectives of Intertemporal Choice.

Tierney John, “Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?” https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html