Out of control decision-making

I’ve just noticed that TED has recently put another talk online by the entertaining and thought-provoking behavioural economist Dan Ariely where he discusses why our feeling of being in total control of our decision-making may be false.

We mentioned an earlier and similarly interesting TED talk on the psychology of cheating previously, but this one is more concerned with what we might call decision-making inertia, where the ‘default’ options or red herrings have a huge sway over our reasoning

This is despite the fact that most people are completely unaware of how irrelevant information has such a profound impact on our choices.

Link to Dan Ariely TED talk on whether we’re in control of our choices.