Nov 13, 2020 21:00:00

People tend to stick to happy endings and make decisions that are against them

There is a saying, 'If it's over, everything is fine,' but when researchers experimented, they found that people make unreasonable decisions about being obsessed with happy endings. Researchers say that when making a decision, you need to be aware of this and consider its strengths and weaknesses rather than being influenced by your immediate impression.

Why our obsession with happy endings can lead to bad decisions

https://theconversation.com/why-our-obsession-with-happy-endings-can-lead-to-bad-decisions-148393

Retrospective Valuation of Experienced Outcome Encoded in Distinct Reward Representations in the Anterior Insula and Amygdala | Journal of Neuroscience
https://www.jneurosci.org/content/40/46/8938

A research team led by Martin D. Westergard, a computational neurologist at the University of Cambridge, asked 27 volunteers to perform virtual gambling and scan their brains during gambling. In this experiment, volunteers were shown on the computer screen how coins of different sizes could be placed in multiple pots. In addition, the winning condition of gambling was to select the pot that collected the most coins, but on the other hand, the 'happy end' in the experiment was set that the largest coin entered the pot at the end. I did. Then, after being shown how the coins went into the pot, the volunteers were asked which pot they liked the most.

As a result of brain scanning a series of situations and computer analysis of the images, two different parts of the volunteer's brain were activated during the experiment.

First, the overall value of the experiment was processed in a site called the

amygdala . While the activity of the amygdala is said to mediate the emotional response that causes irrational behavior, the amygdala is also evaluated to reasonably process the results of economic savings strategies.

However, if a large coin did not enter at the end and the experiment did not end with a 'happy end', the influence of the amygdala on decision making was inhibited by the activity of the insular cortex . The insular cortex is the place associated with the processing of negative experiences, which means that the unhappy ending caused disgust for some volunteers.

In the experiment, the best decision maker chose the pot that collected the most coins, whether or not the last big coin came in. These people had a strong reaction in the amygdala, which made a comprehensive value judgment. On the other hand, those who made decisions that were disadvantageous to them had a large reaction in the insular cortex. In other words, those who can make good decisions can ignore unpleasant impressions such as unhappy endings.

Such brain mechanisms exist whether or not people want them, and the culture of using advertisements, propaganda, and fake news to manipulate people's interests strengthens that tendency. .. And the more outsiders try to manipulate one's thoughts, the more the decision-making ability of people is threatened.

People tend to make intuition-based decisions, but researchers conclude that they need to write down the strengths and weaknesses of things and overcome their urges to make decisions.