LIFE, it could be argued, is like a long game of blackjack. In one common version of this, each person is initially dealt two playing cards. The aim is for your hand to add to 21, or as close to this as you can get without busting. Players can either 鈥渟tick鈥� with their existing hand or 鈥渢wist鈥� 鈥� asking to be dealt another card to add to their total. The risk, of course, is that you exceed 21 and are eliminated.
This may sound far removed from everyday choices, but many of our most important life decisions boil down to such dilemmas. Should I stay put or take the leap and move house? Should I remain in my job or start my own business? Should I put up with an unsatisfying relationship or try my luck at love another time? In each case, we must weigh the security of what we have against a riskier, but potentially more rewarding, alternative.
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The inherent uncertainty of these dilemmas leaves many of us dithering in analysis paralysis, so that we end up lingering in the status quo, never giving ourselves the chance to win big. Some people, in contrast, are too easily swayed by the lure of the new: they gamble too readily, until their impulsive behaviour has lost them everything. If either of these scenarios sounds familiar, help may be close by. Thanks to a growing understanding of our underlying cognitive biases and how to escape them, we now have evidence-based strategies to think about these quandaries more rationally 鈥� and so play the hand life has dealt us to our best advantage.
You may think that these dilemmas are unique to humans, but stick-or-twist decisions are rife in nature. A foraging animal, for example, must recognise that its current territory has limited resources and a more bountiful oasis may be lurking just around the corner. 鈥淭here comes a point where individuals have to face this decision: do you just keep exploiting an area or do you do something riskier and move on to explore a new area?鈥� says at the University of Liverpool, UK.
The relative merits of each option for any one creature will depend on the behaviour of the other members of their group. 鈥淚f all individuals do exactly the same thing, that would then lead to a cost for everyone,鈥� says Patrick. This may help to explain why animals vary in terms of their boldness. Across many species, some individuals feel less threatened by the unfamiliar than others. The bolder ones will be more inclined to explore, while the more cautious ones will stay behind and make the most of what they already have.
Risk-taking birds
Collaborating with researchers at La Rochelle University in France, Patrick that had landed to breed on Possession Island in the Southern Ocean. Each bird can choose to feed from a restricted area of the ocean or take flight on a wind that carries them hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away from their current patch. Their dependence on the wind for navigation means they are unlikely to be able to return to their original feeding ground, says Patrick 鈥� meaning exploration is a risky strategy.
Her team assessed each albatross鈥檚 boldness according to its reactions to approaching humans. Birds that showed great signs of distress as a person moved closer to their nest, such as making a racket or standing up, were rated as being shyer than those that demonstrated more muted reactions. Previous studies have found that this measure correlates with other measures of boldness, such as the birds鈥� propensity to explore unfamiliar objects. Patrick鈥檚 team discovered that it also predicted their tendency to explore other terrains, to take to the sky in search of riches elsewhere.
Humans have a wider range of situations to exploit or explore, but the binary nature of the decisions remains. 鈥淓xploitation-exploration dilemmas span the gamut in terms of biological complexity,鈥� says , a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. An obvious example is immigration: throughout history, individuals and groups have had to decide whether to stay where they are or find fortune elsewhere. But it is equally relevant for many other dilemmas, from our romantic yearnings to our professional ambitions. 鈥淲e鈥檙e constantly making decisions about whether to stick with what we know or to go off in search of better horizons and take certain risks that could potentially lead to bad things happening, but which might also offer opportunities,鈥� says Yudkin.
. Like the bolder albatrosses, they feel less fear in uncertainty. At the extreme, these people may be willing to risk their lives for the thrill of the new. Most of us, however, have the opposite problem. We are far too conservative, even when it would be rational to take a gamble, due to a range of cognitive biases.
Consider the loss aversion bias. People tend to place far more weight on the resources they risk losing than the rewards they might obtain from taking a chance. Psychologists investigate this phenomenon using financial bets. Volunteers might be asked to imagine that they have been given $100, with the opportunity of investing it in a new company. There is a 50 per cent chance that this will earn them $150 on top of their original investment. If the company fails, however, they will lose all the cash.
For many people, the fear of losing the initial $100 looms larger than the possibility of gaining the even greater reward of $150, so they decide not to take the risk. This may seem to make sense in the short term, but if you are consistently averse to loss across many such bets, you will miss out on the chance to make a tidy profit. 鈥淭he effects can add up over time,鈥� says at Baylor University in Texas. His recent research shows that across people of different incomes and educational backgrounds, and it seems to increase with age.
The sunk-cost fallacy
. This is the tendency to continue with a failing project we have invested our resources into rather than pulling out and saving further expenditure in the long term. If you have ever continued to watch a film you weren鈥檛 enjoying simply because you didn鈥檛 want to 鈥渨aste鈥� the time already spent watching it, you have experienced one small example of the sunk cost effect. But it can equally and .
A third subconscious motivator in these decisions is 鈥� a general tendency to favour our current situation over a change. We might always choose the same brand of car, for example, simply because it is familiar and we dislike the uncertainty of trying something new.
In isolation, these biases may seem fairly trivial. Over a lifetime, however, they can prevent us from taking a whole range of leaps into the unknown, even when there would be very good reasons for doing so. What鈥檚 more, this psychological inertia has a lasting impact on our happiness, as at the University of Chicago discovered in .
Levitt first set up a website in which people could describe a major quandary, such as whether to move house, quit their job, propose marriage, break up with their partner, start a business or adopt a child. The participants could then toss a virtual coin to guide their decision-making: if it landed on heads, they were advised to make the big life change; if tails, they were advised to remain in their current situation. Email questionnaires then tracked their progress for six months.
It may seem remarkable that anyone would allow their thinking to be guided this way. Within a year, however, that virtual coin had been tossed more than 22,000 times 鈥� and the results were extremely revealing. On average, people who got 鈥渉eads鈥� were around 25 per cent more likely to disrupt the status quo and opt for the life-changing decision. What鈥檚 more, whatever the website advised, the people who did this were much happier for it, compared with the people who stuck with their lot. Levitt also tracked people making lower-stakes decisions 鈥� such as whether to go on a diet, change their hair colour or get a tattoo 鈥� and this result didn鈥檛 hold. This suggests that there is no need to sweat the small stuff, since these decisions do little to affect overall life satisfaction.
Levitt鈥檚 results indicate that many of us could benefit from reappraising our circumstances and taking the occasional leap into the unknown. If we return to the blackjack analogy, we need to learn how to 鈥渢wist鈥� a little more often. But how to do that?
Perhaps we can learn a trick from 鈥渕aximisers鈥�, individuals with a strong compulsion to find the optimal outcome for every situation. In , they are likely to agree with statements such as 鈥淚 never settle for second best鈥� and 鈥淲henever I am faced with a choice, I try to imagine what all the other possibilities are, even ones that are not present at the moment鈥�. Recent research by at the University of Palermo, Italy, and her colleagues shows that , including the sunk cost effect, which suggests they would be more willing to 鈥渢wist鈥� if their current options aren鈥檛 working. And this approach to life certainly has some advantages. For example, among a sample of students looking for work, compared with 鈥渟atisficers鈥�, people who tend to plump for the first acceptable option.
Nevertheless, there is a problem with this strategy. 鈥淢aximising makes the decision-making process extremely complex, difficult, stressful and emotionally draining,鈥� says Misuraca. There are simply too many options to weigh up the pros and cons of every choice. This can create psychological inertia: natural maximisers can feel so overwhelmed with the options, they simply don鈥檛 make any choice. And if they do decide, the problems continue. 鈥淸Maximisers are] haunted by the doubt that a superior option might be among those they did not evaluate,鈥� says Misuraca. Perhaps as a consequence, and 鈥渇ear of missing out鈥�, which takes a toll on their overall life satisfaction.
The challenge when faced with stick-or-twist dilemmas, then, is finding some kind of sweet spot between all these different tendencies. Most people should be a little readier to gamble when the odds are in their favour, but not so risk-prone that they throw all caution to the wind. We must be open to new options without constantly devaluing what we already have. And we need to be able to take some risks without always living in wistful regret of the path not taken.
Fortunately, burgeoning research in a field of psychology called points to a technique that appears to meet all these criteria. The strategy is known as psychological distancing, which is akin to taking a fly-on-the-wall view of things. There are many ways to apply it. You might imagine you are advising a close friend in a similar dilemma, for example, or you could try to predict how you would view the decision and its consequences at some time in the mid-to-distant future. If you happen to be multilingual, you can even achieve distance by . In each case, the aim is to look at our predicament from a wider perspective. 鈥淲e鈥檙e inherently locked in a single point of view,鈥� says Yudkin. 鈥淭hese sorts of exercises can kick us out of those cognitive ruts.鈥�
Better decision making
Previous research has shown that psychological distancing techniques contribute to greater intellectual humility, which before coming to a judgement. And there is now good reason to believe it can gently nudge us out of our inertia in stick-or-twist dilemmas. For instance, studies show that psychological distancing in a risky decision. According to recent research by Yudkin, it also . In his work, participants played a kind of treasure hunt in which they sought points hidden in a virtual landscape 鈥� with real financial rewards for their finds. To create psychological distance, some were asked to imagine playing the game on behalf of another person. Like the pluckier albatrosses in Patrick鈥檚 study, they were considerably more likely to venture into new territories, rather than stick to those they already knew.
Mrkva agrees that psychological distancing could help us to be a little braver in our decision-making. He points out that our minds often become anchored on past failures, which discourages us from taking similar risks again. Strategies to increase psychological distance could help us to put those disappointments in perspective, he says. 鈥淲e need to look at the bigger picture, not just a single situation.鈥�
This approach can also help us deal with the consequences of our big decisions. Research shows that, when using psychological distancing techniques, 鈥� which we must do to process the choices we have made. In addition, discussing life鈥檚 disappointments from such a distanced perspective . That should prevent you becoming immersed in the feelings of regret that can follow stick-or-twist decisions.
As any gambler knows, Lady Luck won鈥檛 work in your favour all the time, no matter how smart your decision making has been. So you should try to celebrate your successes and learn from your mistakes. Nevertheless, by applying this psychological research, you can make the most of your hand 鈥� and take greater pleasure in the thrill of the game.
David Robson is the author of The聽Expectation Effect: How your mindset can transform your life
Article amended on 19 March 2024
We have clarified the location of Possession Island
