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free_rip comments on Open thread, 21-27 April 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (346)
I wonder what the person who submitted the number 1488 was thinking. (Maximizing their answer, perhaps.)
The quiz seems to target at people who are different then me. I don't watch TV so, it's hard for my to give an answer about channel surfing. I don't listen to the radio. The same goes for renting videos.
Giving neutral answers to every question is 'maximizer tendencies', which seems odd.
You mean alternately picking 3 and 4? I was momentarily puzzled because seven is an odd number but I assume that's what you mean. If so, hmm, that is odd.
Neutral would mean 4 for each one. (123 4 567.)
It's not necessarily odd for neutral answers to count as "maximizing tendencies" -- perhaps most people lean distinctly towards satisficing in the situations described by the questions.
Derp derp derp. Clearly I need to review the difference between odd and even numbers.
A good point about the maximisation tendencies, too, although it strikes me as a little implausible that this was deliberate on the part of the quiz's designer(s).
That quiz looks like it could use an update to fit modern society. It was hard to answer questions about "channel surfing" or "renting videos" in the modern era of hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. Also, thinking back to the days of actual video rental stores, it was much easier to choose a movie there than it is to choose one on Netflix. Possibly because the Netflix selections tends towards "second rate movies I've never heard of OR first rate movies that I've already watched or am not interested in")
Anyways, I am a natural maximizer, which causes lots of stress towards decisions, so I've trained myself towards being a satisficer. I often try to think of decisions in the framework of "it doesn't matter that much WHAT I decide to do here, so long as I just make a decision and move forward with it".
I think about research where they show that the hardest decisions are the least important (if it was obvious which option was significantly better, then it wouldn't be a hard decision.) I think about research where they show that people are happier with decisions when they can't back out of them, so don't second-guess them. I think about cost-benefit analysis and how maximizing that particular decision probably isn't worth the time or stress.
A specific example: I tend to have trouble deciding what to order at restaurants. Knowing that whatever they serve at a restaurant is going to be relatively good, it's not that important what I decide. So when the waitress asks if everyone is ready to order I say "yes", even though I'm not ready, knowing that I will have to choose SOMETHING when it gets to me, and in reality I would be happy with any of the options.