How We Decide

previous decisions. Only 22 percent voted for option C, while 78 percent chose option D, the risky strategy. Most doctors were now acting just like Frank: they were rejecting a guaranteed gain in order to participate in a questionable gamble. Of course, this is a ridiculous shift in preference. The two different questions examine identical dilemmas

Because working memory and rationality share a common cortical source—the prefrontal cortex—a mind trying to remember lots of information is less able to exert control over its impulses.

ventral striatum

mental accounting,

Mistakes aren't things to be discouraged. On the contrary, they should be cultivated and carefully investigated.

When it comes to making ethical decisions, human rationality isn't a scientist, it's a lawyer.

loss aversion, which we discussed earlier. The effect helps explain why people are much more likely to buy meat when it's labeled 85 percent lean instead of 15 percent fat.

When a subject contemplated a gift certificate in the future, brain areas associated with rational planning, such as the prefrontal cortex, were more active. These cortical regions urge a person to be patient, to wait a few extra weeks for the bigger gain. However, when a subject started thinking about getting the gift certificate right away, the b

cognitive contretemps—this