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Thursday, February 28, 2008

We're back: on the psychology of closing doors

I saw this article earlier this week on the mental advantages of making decisions. Researchers found that people who refuse to eliminate options for themselves performed worse in choice experiments. There's apparently a strong feeling of need to keep a door open, even if that's clearly not in a person's best interest.

I love the example of the reverse: an ancient Chinese general who burned his ships to give his troops motivation to go forward.

Burn those bridges and move on!

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