Problem Solving

In this chapter, Jonah Lehrer discussed about how when we think over something that we know well can be harmful in many decision situations, leads to the reintroduction of the notion of a merge between reason and emotion. Too much use of the prefrontal cortex can sometimes lead us to making the wrong judgment in decision making.

'Rationality gone awry' (pg136,3,l3): Thinking too much can cause one to fail to perform like they should.

Renee Fleming and Jean Van de Velde are examples of professional musician and athlete who have honed their intuitive skills, and or yet regularly 'choke' if they actually start thinking about what they are doing. The reason for poor performances' was simply 'caused by too much thought' (pg136,3,l2). Skilled people can blundered by too much thinking, and that was what happened when Renee and Jean 'rely on the wrong brain areas' (pg156,3,l3).

'We do not realise how powerful our expectations are'(pg145,3,8): Thinking too much can be misleading into choosing what we really want

To extrapolate the aforementioned concept of how choosing one option over another can be difficult, students were asked to rate the taste of various brands of strawberry jam and the results were the same as that of professional tasters by Consumer Reports. However, the results changed when student had to explain the reason behind their decision-making. The focus of the students shifted towards irrelevant variables and correlations of their ratings. This demonstrates that over analyzing information can have an impact on realization of a person's true desire. These students relied on rationality brain rather than listening to their 'instinctive preferences' (pg 139,p3,l3). The outcome of the decisions suggested that self analysis resulted in less self awareness (pg 141, p2, l10) therefore they ended up in choosing the option that sounds the best instead of feels the best (pg 138,p1, l11).

The danger of too much information: Thinking too much can lead us to interfere with our understanding.

Nowadays, even though MRIs scans have brought more data to doctors, yet outcomes have not improved because the machine has revealed too much information causing doctors to make decisions that are irrelevant to the finding. This is a good example of how too much information can affect people's decision-making process. Another example is demonstrated by an experiment. The experiment was conducted (see appendix 1) to demonstrate that random numbers affects our decisions, and the number has influence how we answer the second question. When you have nothing else to think about, you fixate on the information at hand and a 'single additional fact can systematically distort the reasoning process' (p154, P2, p1).

Conclusion

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