Every day, students make hundreds of decisions — many unconsciously and most without deliberate thought. Developing a more intentional approach to decisions, especially high-stakes ones, produces better outcomes and builds the kind of judgment that improves continuously over time. This lesson explores the cognitive biases that distort our decisions and the structured approaches that compensate for them.
Cognitive biases — confirmation bias, sunk cost fallacy, availability heuristic — systematically distort our judgment without our awareness
Generating multiple options before evaluating any of them reliably leads to better final decisions
Consider second-order consequences: not just "what happens if I choose this?" but "then what happens after that?"
Reversible decisions deserve less deliberation than irreversible ones — learn to calibrate the effort to the actual stakes
Time to Reflect
Think of an important decision you're currently facing. List at least four options — including ones you'd normally dismiss. For each option, ask: what are the second-order consequences? What am I assuming that might not be true?