Linking Thinking

Making Decisions Tires Your Brain

July 29th, 2008

Marketing research involving making choices reveals the brain as a muscle: when depleted it comes less effective. Making choices exhausts what is known as executive resources, and “downstream” decisions are affected adversely when we are forced to choose with a fatigued brain. Not only does this explain why I always pick plain yogurt in the refrigerator isle, but suggests that if we’ve just spent lots of time focusing on a particular task, exercising self-control or even if we’ve just made lots of seemingly minor choices, then we probably shouldn’t try to make a major decision.

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