pan comments on Open thread, August 5-11, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Is there a name for the bias of choosing the action which is easiest (either physically or mentally), or takes the least effort, when given multiple options? Lazy bias? Bias of convenience?
I've found lately that being aware of this in myself has been very useful in stopping myself from procrastinating on all sorts of things, realizing that I'm often choosing the easier, but less effective of potential options out of convenience.
Laziness.
"I'm not lazy, I have a least-effort bias!"
I'm efficient, you have a least effort bias, he's just lazy.
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Kahneman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_effort
Generally "bias" implies that you're talking more about beliefs than an actions.
If think one thing and do another because it's easier, that's referred to as "akrasia" around here.
If you're saying you believe the easier action is better, but then believe something else after putting more thought/effort/research into it, that does fall into the bias category. I don't think that's exactly cognitive laziness, more action-laziness affecting cognition. I don't have a good name, but it's some sort of causal fallacy, where the outcome (chosen action) is determining the belief (reason for choice) rather than the reverse.
Laziness can sometimes be a form of decision paralysis - when you're facing a new and difficult problem and not sure how to approach it, your brain sometimes freaks out and goes to default behavior, which is to do nothing. That's why it's important to make plans and pre-commitments.
That was a huge source of akrasia for me. I fight by dividing the task ahead into very tiny subproblems ("chunk down", in NLP parlance) and then solving them on at the time. Then it's easy to get into flow...