according to my mno readings, a lot of the decisions i make in my life may not necessarily be good ones because it seems that i have fallen into several of the 8 psychological traps in decision-making.
i tell you, mno is seriously my favourite module this sem. it's part psychology, part sociology, part fluff. i get to study about what influences the minds of business executives when they make decisions. and wow-wee, it seems that these are applicable to real-life too.
welll, according to the
Harvard Business Review article i'm reading now, it seems that i have fallen into the
status-quo trap several times over.
the source of the status-quo trap lies deep within our psyches, in our desire to protect our egos from damage. breaking from the status-quo means taking action, and when we take action, we take responsibility, thus opening ourselves to critcism and to regret. not surprisingly, we naturally look for reasons to do nothing. sticking with the status-quo represents, in most cases, the safer course because it puts us at less psychological risk.and it would also seem that i've fallen prey to the
sunk-cost trap more often in my life than i would have liked.
another of our deep-seated biasnes is to make choices in a way that justifies past choices, even when the past choices no longer seem valid. why can't people free themselves from past decisions? frequently, it's because they are unwilling, consciously or not, to admit to a mistake.being the arrogant individual that i am, i do not like to admit to my mistakes. and even when i do realise the error of my ways, i find it so hard to accept that fact and change my mind. it seems that when i'm wrong about something, i'm even more determined to keep at it in the hopes that success will eventually fall onto my lap. well, hello. it seems that my stubbornness isn't unique only to me. it's common to everyone in the form of a sunk-cost psychological trap!
spent the better part of the night studying downstairs, but although i feel inclined to think that i did a lot, thinking back i think i didn't really accomplish that much. just webcasted my mno lecture, copied over Chelsa's film notes from Monday's lecture and read one mno reading. we took a one-hour Sheares supper break and came back at 12 plus feeling too too full.
am supposed to be sleeping soon cos i have to get up at the unearthly time of 830am tomorrow morning cos there's some SMU thing to do. then lecture after that! heh but i HAD to finish blogging about my interesting finding cos when i read it, i was all like, oh wow, i can so relate to this stuff! i think that's what i means to be interested in your subject matter.
i think i shall play a quick game of spider solitaire before going to bed. the one-hour nap earlier on in the evening has overcharged me somewhat.
