At first glance it may seem like an eccentric choice of a public figure to be demerged against costume journalism. However, the reasons could be deeper than you think.
How many times, at the end of a day, we find ourselves tired and exhausted unable to make decisions With lucidity? How many others are we tried from hours of work without any physical activity having done?
This experience, however common, has captured the attention of scholars since the 90s and has taken on the name of “tiredness from decision“(decision fatigue).
It describes the situation in which one’s own ability to make choices And to maintain control of one’s behavior is put in crisis due to repeated decision -making taken during the day (Pignatiello et al., 2018).
It is commonly referring to this state also with the term “mental tiredness” and, however, the two terms are not exactly the same thing. For mental tiredness, the difficulty of using cognitive processes such as reasoning is defined, while in the state of tiredness of decision not only it becomes difficult to reflect, but it is tiring even regulating one’s internal states such as emotions.
Why make decisions involve tiredness?
According to Baumeister and Colleghi (1998), the basic assumption is that the ability of human beings to control one’s behavior is not unlimited. It can meet exhaustion.
In a similar way to physical fatigue after an effort, every choice that the person makes consumes a part of internal resources that can no longer be used to process information, think about problems and, therefore, make decisions.
As you make choices, the person consumes the resources he has daily available, coming to finish them. In this sense, therefore, the tiredness deriving from making decisions He assumes the role of indicator that the internal resources are running out.
What are the symptoms?
In general, one of the most obvious consequences of the decision effort It is that the person becomes unable to compromise and reflect on the options available. It assumes a passive attitude towards any new situation in which it should decide, making choices that may appear impulsive or irrational (Baumeister and Tierney, 2012).
The person suffering from decision tiredness can show the following symptoms:
- It adopts avoidance behaviors such as procrastination or passivity during the decision-making process, which paradoxically can lead to the decision not to do.
- It tends to choose automatically without carefully evaluating the available options.
- It has impulsive or explosive reactions, as in a state of effort from decision, emotions are perceived in a more intense way. In other words, in the eyes of the person what would be a simple drying can turn into a real problem.
- It has difficulty concentration that prevent you from focusing on a task or on listening to others.
- It worsens in the performance in completing the tasks, especially of an intellectual nature.
- Use more fast and general rules (heuristic) to solve problems. Not going into the merits of the situation, however, these can lead to distorted choices and unwanted results.
- It has less tolerance to situations of physical resistance such as standing or maintaining correct posture from sitting.
- It has greater difficulty in defining what result you want to get from a choice.
- It has the perception of not being able to complete the decision -making process and the feeling of being trapped.
- Exhibition marked increase in indecision with frequent rethinking about the decisions already made.
What consumes mental resources?
Have made decisions
As already mentioned, having had to make decisions during the day is one of the first causes of decision effort. This aspect is particularly important, as its effects have been shown in a series of crafts that require maximum concentration levels such as the doctor (Linder et al., 2014), the judge (Danzinger et al., 2011) and the flight controller (Orasanu et al., 2012).
Keep the self-control
The literature agrees in affirming that the more one person has to control and regulate his behavior, the more likely it will be to experience decision effort. Examples have had to have maintained attention on a certain task for a long time (Gilbert et al., 1988) or having had to modulate their emotions and thoughts (Muraven et al., 1998).
The reason lies in the fact that maintaining self-control e make decisions They consume the same internal resources, leading to exhaust them faster.
Time of day
Although he does not bind directly with the effort from decision, the time of the day has shown that he could influence the levels of tiredness from decision. For example, Kouchaki and Smith (2014) found that with the passage of the day people always become unable to resist temptations and can induce non -ethical behaviors like lying.
Physical fatigue
Sleep deprivation seems to increase the probability of incurring struggles to make decisions. As reported by Harrison and Horne (2000), people deprived of sleep think in a less flexible way, forgiveness of creativity, have difficulty concentrating or are captured by superfluous details of the situation. They put too much confidence in strategies already known and report memory problems. These elements are, not surprisingly, key aspects of the decision -making process.
What to do to limit the effort from decision
Although fatigue due to repeated choices is a natural phenomenon is also true that, to date, we are exposed to a quantity of situations where a choice is required much more than in the past. Just think of the offer of food products, the amount of times that we must choose whether to respond to messages and e-mails, the amount of information we receive and on which we must choose whether to devote our attention.
Below are a series of strategies useful to manage internal resources e mitigate the effects of decision fatigue.
- Reserve the most important decisions in the morning. In fact, mental resources are greater during the first hours of vigil and allow a better ability to decide.
- Order decisions in terms of priority. Define the choices to be made on the basis of personal importance and impact they could have on life. The most important choices are those we care most and those that could have long -term consequences. To them it is necessary to dedicate time, for all the others it is useful to choose the simplest option so as not to consume too many mental resources.
- Vary your diet and guarantee the brain the right intake of sugars. Many studies (Galiliot et al., 2007) have highlighted how the deficiency of sugars in the blood increases the probability of being impulsive and meeting the detriment of cognitive skills.
- Maintain a balanced perspective compared to the results. Avoiding perfectionism is essential to be able to make decisions quickly as if you search for perfection, it is likely that you end up increasing the sense of frustration.
- Create routines that lighten the amount of decisions to be made in one day. For example, fix days for the most important commitments (gym, friends, hobbies) and respect those routine.
- When possible, try to reduce options to only two alternatives.
In conclusion, the decision effort It is a common phenomenon at the basis of many impulsive behaviors and non -weighted decisions. However, once known and managed, it allows you to optimize your resources by promoting the person’s daily well -being.
Bibliographic references
- Baumeister, R., & Tierney, J. (2012). Willpower. New York: Penguin Books.
- Baumeister, R., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. (1998). Ego Depletion: Is The Active Self A Limited Resource?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(5), 1252-1265. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.74.5.1252
- Danziger, S., Levav, J., & Avnaim-Passo, L. (2011). Extraneous Factors in Judial Decisionions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,108(17), 6889-6892. Doi: 10.1073/Pnas.1018033108
- Galiliot, M., Baumeister, R., Dewall, C., Maner, J., Plant, E., & Tice, D. et al. (2007). Self-Control Relies on Glucose As A Limited Energy Source: Willpower is More Than a Metaphor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(2), 325-336. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.92.2.325
- Harrison, Y., & Horne, J. (2000). The Impact of Sleep Deprivation On Decision Making: A Review. Journal of Experimental Psychology: applied, 6(3), 236-249. DOI: 10.1037/1076-898x.6.3.236
- Kouchaki, M., & Smith, I. (2013). The Morning Morality Effect. Psychological Science, 25(1), 95-102. Doi: 10.1177/0956797613498099
- Linder, J., Doctor, J., Friedberg, M., Reyes Nieva, H., Birks, C., Meeker, D., & Fox, C. (2014). Time of day and the decision to prescriber antibiotics. Jama Internal Medicine, 174(12), 2029
- Orasanu J, Parke B, Kraft n, et al. (2012) Evaluating the effectiveness of Schedule Changes for Air Traffic Service (ATS) Providers: Controller Alertness and Fatigue Monitoring Study (No. Dot/Faa/HFD-13/001). Available at: https://trid.trb.org/view/1364660
- Pignatiello, G., Martin, R., & Hickman, R. (2018). Decision Fatigue: A Conceptual Analysis. Journal of Health Psychology135910531876351. Doi: 10.1177/1359105318763510
