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Articles on Decision making

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Social security is on a collision course with insolvency. A little bit of math could keep it safe. Shutterstock

How mathematics could help us save social security

The US Social Security system has been heading toward insolvency for decades, with the program now projected to run a 25% deficit by a little after 2030, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Despite…
Nik Wallenda says he doesn’t take unreasonable risks. EPA/Tannen Maury

Running the risk: why experience matters when making decisions

This is the fourth article in a series, How we make decisions, which explores our decision-making processes. How well do we consider all factors involved in a decision, and what helps and what holds us…
Sports officials make judgements in the moment, but are judged in hindsight. How do they meet that challenge? Harris Walker/Flickr

Fair call? What sport can show us about high-speed decisions

This is the third article in a series, How we make decisions, which explores our decision-making processes. How well do we consider all factors involved in a decision, and what helps and what holds us…
Our brains make judgements about images before we’re even aware of making a decision. A Health Blog/Flickr

How to help take control of your brain and make better decisions

This is the first article in a series, How we make decisions, which explores our decision-making processes. How well do we consider all factors involved in a decision, and what helps and what holds us…
Earthquake in Haiti killed more than 100,000. That’s hard to imagine. UNDP

How huge disasters can play tricks on the way we value life

People find it difficult to understand the true value of loss of life when the numbers are large. For instance, a study found that people are more willing to donate money to an organisation when just one…
A coal seam gas pilot well from the Santos Narrabri Gas Project in New South Wales, which has divided opinion in the local community. AAP Image/Dean Lewins

The challenge of sorting fact from fiction on coal seam gas

Can you match the following three statements with the answers just below? Coal seam gas is bad for the environment and we should all protest against its use. Genetically modified foods are a part of multinational…
The heat is on. And referees can get it wrong. Tolga Bozoglu/EPA

Forget the players, World Cup referees are feeling the heat

There has been much hand-wringing over the problems that World Cup players are facing due to the environmental extremes they are exposed to in Brazil. There has been little sympathy for the men in black…
With so many choices ‘below the line’ how are voters confident they’ve ranked candidates correctly? AAP/Dean Lewins

Humans struggle with decisions – why make elections so difficult?

It’s been a crazy year for decision making. Not only did we have an election, we now have the threat of a double dissolution if the Federal Senate keeps knocking back bills from the House of Representatives…

Power helps long-term planning

Decision makers who feels powerful are more likely to consider their future selves, rather than immediate or short-term gains…
Overwhelmed: to live wisely in a world where complexity seems to be running rampant, we must first grasp what complexity is. Flickr/Elif Ayiter/Alpha Auer/..../

Challenge 9: Decision making amidst increasing complexity

In part nine of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Cliff Hooker argues that to get any better at decision-making, we must first face up to our limitations. Global challenge 9: How can the…
Julia Gillard espouses “evidence-based” policy and Bob Hawke set up a Future Commission, but policy-making is necessarily subject to all manner of short-term pressures. AAP/Tracey Nearmy

Challenge 5: The trouble with policy-makers thinking ahead

In part five of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Scott Prasser questions easy sloganeering about the importance of “long-term” policy-making. Global challenge 5: How can policymaking be…
Are you a rational thinker, or do you make decisions based on intuition? alistairh

The benefits of being in two minds

Are you the “lazy” or the “deliberate” thinker? Why can’t we have a hybrid? Something has been bugging me for quite a while – how difficult it is to strike a balance between thinking fast, albeit impulsively…

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