Scientific Definition
Decision quality degrades over the course of a day.
Plain-English Definition
Decision quality degrades over the course of a day.
Feynman Explanation
Schedule your worst decisions for after lunch. Or skip them.
Core Principle
Decision quality degrades over the course of a day.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Decision quality degrades over the course of a day.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Schedule your worst decisions for after lunch. Or skip them.
Examples
- Judge parole decisions correlate with time-since-meal.
- Executive calendar design as decision quality design.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Protect mornings for hard decisions. Eliminate trivial ones.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Protect mornings for hard decisions. Eliminate trivial ones.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
How options are presented changes which ones get chosen.
Too many options produces worse decisions and less satisfaction.
Defaults bypass active cognition.
Two ways of thinking, both real, both useful, often mis-deployed.
Brain weights existing state heavily.
Fast intuitive vs. slow deliberative thinking.
Glucose, omega-3s, sleep, and hydration each influence decision quality.
Naming an emotion reduces its intensity.
Cumulative physiological wear from chronic stress.
Emotional override of rational processing.
Brain region tracking conflict, error, and effort.
We treat AI as more humanlike than it is.