Jonah Lehrer on Decision-Making
At Sentient, we find great joy in thinking and talking about decision-making. It’s our passion, and we have no shortage of opinions, theories, and vehement discussions around our lunch table.
Last night added another voice to our ongoing discussions when I went to hear Jonah Lehrer, author of the Frontal Cortex blog speak at the Harvard Bookstore. It was standing room only as students, faculty, business people and passers-by turned up to hear Lehrer talk about his new book, How We Decide. The book focuses on decision-making and Lehrer started off with an example from his own life, describing how his brain makes decisions in the supermarket, tending to try to rationalize something as seemingly insignificant as a cereal purchase. As he mulls over rational factors around the different Cheerios flavors, his decision becomes more difficult. His point is that (his words) “pure reason turns out to be disease” – in other words (his), “reaching for rational sounding reasons can completely obliterate our decisions.” Lehrer reminds us that we need both the rational and emotional part of our brain to make good decisions – rational alone won’t cut it. He tells us that we are more consistent when we engage in emotional thought processes, and in fact we need to listen to our “emotional brain” more, urging us to become a more sensitive brain. He cites Timothy Wilson’s study on jam preferences “Thinking Too Much: Introspection Can Reduce the Quality of Preferences and Decisions” as evidence, which concludes, as the title states, that being too rational will cause you to make bad decisions.
Being a woman, I couldn’t help but think that we already know this. Haven’t we been told to “listen to our hearts” and “trust our intuition” our whole lives? As marketers (which is my field), we know that brands and advertising must speak to a consumer’s emotions in order to compel them to buy. Studies in decision-making have boiled this down to a key thought: decisions are made emotionally, and justified rationally – Antonio Damasio provided evidence to support this in 1994. So what’s new about this research in decision-making, how can it be applied to our daily lives, and what can you learn from Lehrer?
Lots, actually. Lehrer has an elegant way of breaking down complex concepts in neuroscience and cognition to simple, digestible pieces. He’s a good storyteller, weaving narrative from research studies into theory to show real life examples of science in action. In this talk he delved into the predictive power of dopamine, told us why expectations govern our perceptions (in a frightening way), the importance of our ability to generate deliberate calm, why gambling and other random response activities are so addicting, why the uniquely human ability for metacognition can drive us to obsess!, and why delayed gratification is a critical life skill that can predict our success in life when tested as early as 4 years of age – simply too many important ideas to give ample attention to in this blog. Lehrer’s talk lasted just 30 minutes (and then he took questions) – and while I knew I was learning good info, as I write this I become amazed at just how much I retained. Clearly, Lehrer knows his stuff, but more importantly, he delivers it so it sticks. I highly recommend hearing him speak if you get the chance, and though I haven’t yet read his book, I’ll go out on a limb and say it is very likely a must-buy.
Follow Jonah Lehrer on his blog and get his whole bio here. This is more than just fodder for scientists and marketers: I believe anyone interested in human beings will learn something compelling from reading what Lehrer has to offer.
