If you’re like most people, you make thousands of decisions each day.
Sure, most of those decisions are unconscious and inconsequential—like will you put on your left shoe or right shoe first?
Of course, many decisions do have varying degrees of consequence. Among all the products and services on the market, which ones will you buy? Which relationships receive your focused attention? Of all the priorities in your life, where do you invest the most time and energy? And when it comes to your core philosophy—your views on faith, social, and political issues—how do you navigate the sometimes-bewildering maze of conflicting perspectives?
In this voting season we’re reminded that such navigation is often complicated by political candidates and pontificators who insist on playing fast and loose with facts.
That conundrum is the subject of a thoughtful piece in the MIT Sloan Management Review, titled “The Cognitive Shortcut That Clouds Decision-Making.” It’s based on research by an international team of academics who specialize in how people reach conclusions that have varying degrees of influence on how they live—and enjoy—their lives.
One of those researchers is Dr. Nadia M. Brashier, a Purdue University professor whose focuses on ways people come to believe things that are not true, from fake news to common superstitions.
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