
Why two men committing the same crime get different chances at a parole - sidwyn
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html
======
DanielBMarkham
A couple things leaped out at me reading this.

What about insulin resistance? Do people with high insulin resistance have
less of an effect from sugary snacks?

On the flip side, how about exercise? Do people with a lot of sugar stored in
muscles and a more optimum processing of sugar do better on these things?

To put this more generally, the author seemed to be reporting from a
deterministic viewpoint, i.e., whatever you eat and these random life
scheduling events are causing decision fatigue. Is there nothing an individual
can do (aside from the briefly-described coping mechanisms) My gut feeling
tells me this is not as black-and-white as it is made out to be. Hopefully
there will be a lot of future research in this area. It's a fascinating topic.

~~~
cperciva
_What about insulin resistance? Do people with high insulin resistance have
less of an effect from sugary snacks?_

Nope. The dopamine response from eating sugar is completely independent of the
insulin response. Unfortunately people with type 1 diabetes still get a
dopamine response from eating candy and don't get one from injecting insulin
-- life would be so much better if those were reversed!

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lpolovets
The article was written by one of the coauthors of Willpower
([http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-
Human...](http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human-
Strength/dp/1594203075)). I read this book last week and it was _terrific_. A
great blend of fascinating studies and practical advice. Also, while many pop
psych books rehash the same studies over and over, Willpower featured many
results that I had not encountered before, like these findings about parole
hearings. Highly recommended book.

~~~
snitko
Couldn't agree more, a great book. As far as I understood it was written by a
journalist, but a journalist closely working with scientists. He tells a great
story and it definitely is nothing like Gladwell speculations.

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heyadayo
This is a much more interesting article than the title suggests. I'd rather
see the title reference decision fatigue.

~~~
altrego99
I found the title interesting to look into it, and I was pleasantly surprised
when I saw the article deals with something deeper than I expected.

I agree though if there are those who don't find the judge's behavior strange
nay not be attracted by the title and will miss out on a great story.

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brador
Interesting that they mention the Dell website for decision making. 4 times
this year I've decided to purchase a new computer and spent hours trying to
figure out what to buy from the Dell website. I have yet to upgrade.

~~~
zdw
Dell likes to offer a TON of options on everything. You can get the exact
computer you want (within specs), but at the cost of having to accumulate the
knowledge to make those decisions.

This isn't hard if you're a hardware geek, but ask say a software geek a
nontechnical person to do it and they'll frequently end up in a world of
confusion.

Compare to say Apple's site which in many cases has about 2 options per item
(as opposed to Dell's 10+), which often causes hardware geeks frustration.

See also the paradox of choice.

~~~
brador
When it was Pentium 2,3, or 4 it made perfect sense. Higher number = better.
When it's pentium 2318497X vs AMD 328712Y vs AMD 1238NP32 it's just a garble
of random digits. Combine that with graphics cards, motherboard types,
connections and all the upsell opportunities/marketing gimmicks Dell attempts
and it's a confusing mess of choices. I just want a fast PC for upto £1,000.

edit - I should add this is all after I've been in tech for close to 15 years
now. I wonder what it is like to be a non-tech buying a computer.

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loup-vaillant
One of the biases at work is described here:
<http://lesswrong.com/lw/58y/the_bias_you_didnt_expect/>

Simply put, the judge is being harsher as the time since his last meal grows
longer.

------
blahedo
> _His studies show that people with the best self-control are the ones who
> structure their lives so as to conserve willpower. ...they establish habits
> that eliminate the mental effort of making choices._

This rung a bell for me because I've noticed it's often easier to enforce a
rule on myself if it's A) an actual rule and B) pre-decided (by me). It's not
that I'm handing over the decision-making to anyone else. It's that I've set
myself a rule (like, "no Facebook at work", a personal choice, not imposed by
my job), so I'm not deciding _right now_ "do I have time to check FB? Will it
suck me in too far?" and so on. Looking back over my various self-improvement
"diets" (usually more technological than food-related) I can see that the most
successful ones were those for which I could set a hard-and-fast rule and for
which I could convince myself that "the rule is set, can't break it now".

Which is, of course, _still_ a mental discipline, and a nontrivial one. But
it's easier than the ones that involve more deciding on the spot, and a lot
easier than the ones where I think, "I will _try_ to _mostly_ avoid...", which
usually don't last very long. I'd never really thought of that in terms of
number of _decisions_ before, or decision fatigue, but it's an excellent
explanation for a phenomenon I was already pretty familiar with.

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cturner
The issue of parole isn't particular interesting. But decision fatigue is
intriguing. I think a more interesting pitch for this would be just 'Decision
fatigue'.

~~~
emeltzer
Why is the issue of parole not particularly interesting to you?

~~~
aaronharnly
Buying computers is much more interesting than a man's freedom!

------
cletus
That was really interesting and the title should've been different. I assumed
it was the same story from a few months ago about the statistical likelihood
of parole on the time of day but it's far more than that.

Three things sprung to mind:

The first is that I've often said I like the food we get at Google because
food is, for me, a bunch of decisions I just don't care about. Where to go?
What to order from the menu? How much to tip (if appropriate)?

Providing your employees with food seems to directly address decision fatigue.

Google rose to a prominence in an era of portal pages. Yahoo in particular had
a home page without hundreds of links. Google presented you with a logo, a
text box, two buttons and <50 words of text. What to do on such a page
involves less decision making.

In the 90s there were lots of experiments with directories. Yahoo had one.
Think about this: typing in a search involves one decision. Finding something
in a directory involves one decision at each step.

The second thing that occurred to me was Apple. Apple is famous for making
decisions for its customers. Many people rail against this lack of control. I
personally appreciate it.

Consider: with Windows you need to make lots of decisions like whether or not
you need to have security software, what antivirus solution to get, what
program to use to play music, etc. With a Mac (and especially an iDevice) most
of those choices are made for you.

Similarly the Apple Store is famous for its low number of choices (compare
buying a Mac to buying any PC online).

Could it be that this making decisions for customers is part of the intense
loyalty many have for Apple products?

The third was the sociological impacts of decision fatigue. Organized religion
and government tell people what to do. They give people a set of morals and
laws (respectively) to follow rather than forcing people to think through the
consequences. Decision fatigue is a new angle to this (at least for me).

Lastly the impacts of poverty were a particularly refreshing angle. As a
software engineer I don't really need to make day-to-day tradeoffs in
groceries, what I can eat and the like so I just don't suffer from that kind
of fatigue.

EDIT: two more interesting aspects to this occurred to me.

The education system in the last few decades has emphasized creativity and
expression. This is part of the reason why many countries have abandoned
school uniforms. While many laud the benefits of self-expression from, say,
high school students being able to wear what they want, what about the
consequences in terms of decision fatigue?

High school is stressful for most people. Add to that the stress of deciding
what to wear, how to present oneself and so on and you can argue it's a
contributing factor to poor decision-making by teens, no?

The second is on leadership. Leaders make decisions, obviating the need for
followers to weigh up choices. Could this be part of why so many of us are so
eager to follow? I remember a scene from an early Mad Men episode where Don
was saying that what most people crave is to be told that whatever they're
doing is OK. We crave that affirmation. I wonder at the decision fatigue
implications of this.

Similarly, what about relationships? Couples often get to the point of what
"we" decided to do. Could part of the advantage of a relationship be that you
greatly reduce the number of decisions that you personally need to make?

~~~
michaelochurch
_Google rose to a prominence in an era of portal pages. Yahoo in particular
had a home page without hundreds of links. Google presented you with a logo, a
text box, two buttons and <50 words of text. What to do on such a page
involves less decision making. In the 90s there were lots of experiments with
directories. Yahoo had one. Think about this: typing in a search involves one
decision. Finding something in a directory involves one decision at each
step._

Yep. Also consider the superior experience of reading a news article (like
this one) in single-page mode instead of page by page. Clicking on a link
feels a lot more like "a decision" than turning the page of a book, which
flows naturally. The single-page option just "feels" a lot better.

One issue that comes up in web design is that reading a link (even a spurious
one) taxes the reader's mind substantially more than reading regular text. If
I recall correctly, the cognitive load of a link is about five times that of a
regular word.

People tend to "block out" the clutter, but there's a subconscious mental
energy expenditure in the "blocking out" process. People don't notice the
effect day-to-day, but over time it leads to people preferring Google over
Yahoo.

 _Apple is famous for making decisions for its customers. Many people rail
against this lack of control. I personally appreciate it._

I agree. Windows, as far as I can see it, is the worst of both worlds. You
have to do a lot of work (make a lot of decisions) to get a half-decent
experience but if you want to control it at a low level, the way you can with
Linux, you can't. Apple provides you with a B+/A- default experience, and
Jobs's attitude is that if you want something "better", you should use
something else. Which is the right approach because one person's "A+"
experience is another's confusing horror.

The quickest way to enervate someone, in this regard, is to present that
person with lots of decisions to make, and then ensure that the outcomes of
those decisions are still somewhat unsatisfactory. That's the Windows
experience, in a nutshell.

 _The second is on leadership. Leaders make decisions, obviating the need for
followers to weigh up choices. Could this be part of why so many of us are so
eager to follow? I remember a scene from an early Mad Men episode where Don
was saying that what most people crave is to be told that whatever they're
doing is OK._

Don Draper: banned on Google+. :)

I remember that scene (in _Mad Men_ ) quite well and I think it's insightful.
It reminds me of _On Killing_ , an excellent book on the psychological effects
of war. One proposed candidate for the increasing prevalence of PTSD is the
way soldiers are treated when they return from war. War has always been
terrible, but the change is in how soldiers are seen on return. In 1945, they
were received as heroes for defeating the Nazis, which helped them feel "OK"
about what they'd had to do. After Vietnam, they were called "baby killers"
and generally treated quite poorly. For that reason, a lot of the Vietnam vets
never recovered.

~~~
cletus
> I agree. Windows, as far as I can see it, is the worst of both worlds. You
> have to do a lot of work (make a lot of decisions) to get a half-decent
> experience but if you want to control it at a low level, the way you can
> with Linux, you can't.

I have a slightly different take on this. While I agree that Windows is an
example of how trying to be all things to all men leads to a confusing mess,
at least in Windows 7 it's still a fairly decent default experience. It
probably does punish the true tinkerer for all its complex layers of the
registry, local and group policies, magic folders (eg startup), etc.

But Linux on the desktop just goes to prove time and again just how bad a user
experience it is to give true "freedom". I don't want to figure out what the
best way of playing video or audio files is and choosing between N (where N is
typically a fairly large number) options.

This is something that Canonical (for one) is trying to address but at this
stage it almost requires a complete rethink of the Linux desktop (which may be
what Wayland and others hope to achieve).

> I remember that scene (in Mad Men) quite well and I think it's insightful.
> It reminds me of On Killing, an excellent book on the psychological effects
> of war.

I could probably rhapsodize about the insights of _Mad Men_ all day.

That's certainly an interesting take on war. I think it's more than that
though. In modern warfare we (as a society) have become incredibly good at
training soldiers to do their job reflexively. In a combat situation the
training kicks in and the modern soldier will, generally speaking, shoot an
enemy (as one example) almost completely instinctively.

It's only _after_ that happens when the soldier has time to process what
they've done that they run into trouble. I saw a documentary on this and it
was talking about how there's a real disconnect between the _how_ of a
soldier's actions and the _why_ with the increasingly effective training.

~~~
michaelochurch
_I could probably rhapsodize about the insights of Mad Men all day._

Something I find interesting is that _Mad Men_ and _Breaking Bad_ are
superficially different shows, but actually extremely similar. Ignore the
radically different backdrops and they're both about out-of-control egos and
"men at work" drama. The difference is that one setting involves alcoholism
and advertising and people who fall out just get fired, while the other
involves methamphetamine and murder and failing (for Walter) means death. _Mad
Men_ is erotic, _Breaking Bad_ is thanatoptic; but the shows are two different
takes on the same society.

I don't know if this correspondence is intentional on the part of AMC's
directors, but _Mad Men_ and _Breaking Bad_ are, to me, clear A-and-Z bookends
of the American Era.

 _It's only after that happens when the soldier has time to process what
they've done that they run into trouble. I saw a documentary on this and it
was talking about how there's a real disconnect between the how of a soldier's
actions and the why with the increasingly effective training._

Soldiers and policemen have a terrible job. For psychopaths (2%) killing
another person is easy. For everyone else, it's extremely difficult (even in
self-defense) and something people generally avoid. Which means that an
untrained normal person drawing against a psychopath is likely to be shot
dead. This may not be new knowledge, but 85% of guns issued in the American
Civil War were _never fired_.

------
bumbledraven
I have not seen research on the subject, but I expect that use of commitment
devices can reduce decision fatigue. Steven King's story "Quitter's, Inc."
gives an extreme example of the efficacy of commitment devices, but a more
mundane example might be making an agreement with a friend to pay them $100
for each day you cheat on your diet in the next week. If you're an honest
person, you won't be tempted by the thought of cheating, since that slice of
cake won't be worth $100 to you. You don't have to constantly decide whether
to cheat on your diet; you only have to decide once per week (or per month, or
however long of a term you set for your "commitment contract"). What's more,
decisions pertaining to the use of commitment devices seem to be made by an
aspect of you that looks out for your long-term welfare, not the part that
simply wants a donut now.

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tlb
From the PNAS article (costs $10): "the ordinal position of cases is, with
rare exception, determined by the arrival time of the prisoner’s attorney."

Although the researchers claim otherwise, I'm sure that eager and optimistic
attorneys arrive for early slots. Prisoners expecting a favorable hearing
probably demand that their attorneys be there early. This needs a properly
randomized controlled experiment.

~~~
ars
They mentioned what happened after lunch.

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dennisgorelik
Considering how hard it is to make a choice, what is the optimal number of
subscription plans for SaaS?

One? Three? Five?

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awflick
I wonder what the optimal fatigue level is for your potential customer. Is it
when they are more worn down and willing to go along with your recommendations
or when they are less worn down and they have a more satisfactory experience
making choices that are right for them?

~~~
ams6110
I've noticed a lot of car dealers around here are now open until about 9:00
PM.

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ralfd
So, if you want a promotion you should go in the morning to your boss?

~~~
euccastro
Unless in your circumstances it's easier and safer for him to just say yes. In
that case go right before lunch, or late in the evening --I guess.

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nazar
tl;dr anyone please? nytimes.com is blocked over here.

~~~
goblin89
Did you know why dogs are fed sugar after obeying commands for some time? It's
because a dose of glucose restores the willpower.

This stays true for humans. In supermarkets, we are offered sweet snacks at
checkout—when we have little willpower, the reason being lots of choices we
had to make while shopping. So both a) our brain requires more glucose and b)
we can't resist sugar snacks anyway. No matter how junk that food might be.

And here's the key— ’Your brain does not stop working when glucose is low. It
stops doing some things and starts doing others. It responds more strongly to
immediate rewards and pays less attention to long-term prospects.‘

Unfortunately there are areas where decision fatigue might be critical: ‘In
midmorning, usually a little before 10:30, the parole board would take a
break, and the judges would be served a sandwich and a piece of fruit. The
prisoners who appeared just before the break had only about a 20 percent
chance of getting parole, but the ones appearing right after had around a 65
percent chance.’

Also, that might be the reason people stay poor: when you don't have a lot of
money, you need to make much more tough choices. This depletes people's
willpower, and consequently they are worse at other important stuff like
education.

How to deal with decision fatigue? ‘People with the best self-control are the
ones who structure their lives so as to conserve willpower. <…> Even the
wisest people won’t make good choices when they’re not rested and their
glucose is low. <…> _The best decision makers are the ones who know when not
to trust themselves.’_

Very interesting article, actually. A lot of interesting stuff there. Is there
no workaround to access nytimes from your area?

~~~
nazar
Thanks! I can access it through proxy but internet speed is slow, so that
would take n seconds, at least it will take more than the time u spent writing
your post. So, thanks for effort, interesting stuff, especially for the guy
like me who comes from biology to computer science.

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aneth
I'm curious what effect sleep, meditation, and rest would have on willpower.

