Exploring Decision-making Beyond Pros and Cons Lists

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The chapter delves into the limitations of traditional pros and cons lists in decision-making, highlighting how they can be influenced by bias and fail to consider the magnitude and probability of outcomes. It emphasizes the importance of understanding expected value, risk, and uncertainty in decision-making processes, using examples like bet sizing, climbing Mount Everest, and choosing between different options to illustrate these concepts.

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Should people spend more time becoming better decision-makers? What are the main things that determine how our lives turn out? What's wrong with pro / con lists? When should we deviate from making decisions based on expected value calculations? What kinds of uncertainty might we encounter in the decision-making process? Are explicit decision calculations self-defeating? How similar is intuitive decision-making to decision-making that's based on calculations? How useful are heuristics? How can we know which decisions are significant enough to warrant calculations? What makes a decision hard? What's the omission / commission bias? What lessons can we learn from monkeys and pedestals? Should decision-making strategies be taught in primary and secondary schools?

Annie Duke is an author, speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space, as well as Special Partner focused on Decision Science at First Round Capital Partners, a seed stage venture fund. Her latest book, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, was released in 2022 from Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint. Her previous book, Thinking in Bets, is a national bestseller. As a former professional poker player, she has won more than $4 million in tournament poker, has won a World Series of Poker bracelet, and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and the NBC National Poker Heads-Up Championship. She is the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn or via her website, AnnieDuke.com; or subscribe to her newsletter on Substack.

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