Page 132 - Hard Goals

Required 123

sionals paying a lot of money for some high-level thinking).
For this particular class, students were assigned to write three
papers. In one group, they were given evenly spaced deadlines
(one paper due after each third of the class). The other group
could set their own deadlines. For example, they could choose
to make all three papers due on the very last day (the only caveat
was that these deadlines had to be selected up front and they
were binding). Now rationally, you’d want as much time as pos-
sible (in other words, to make all three papers due on the last
day of class) because you would have learned more in the class,
maybe you’d fi nd synergy between the papers, and so on. But it
didn’t really work out that way.
Students who were given the evenly spaced deadlines had
better grades than those who chose their own deadlines (so
much for free choice always being better). But another interest-
ing factor was that the people who chose their own deadlines,
but gave themselves evenly spaced deadlines (similar to the no-
choice crowd) had grades that were basically indistinguishable
from the no-choice crowd (and better than the people who made
all three papers due on the last day). So the lesson seems to be
that when you take away some of your choices, structure your
thinking, and force yourself into an arbitrary sense of urgency,
you’ll perform better.

ANIMATED AND REQUIRED
ARE GREAT FRIENDS

The endowment effect is one of my favorite psychological biases.
Discovered by Richard Thaler, and inspired by Amos Tversky