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Choice Frameworking

Summary

In this episode of Developer Tea, host Jonathan Cuttrell delves deeper into the topic of choice, building on previous discussions about the paradox of choice. He offers practical advice for improving decision-making by moving beyond simple yes/no or single-option scenarios.

Cuttrell emphasizes the importance of generating multiple, reasonably equal, and competing options—ideally three or four—to avoid the pitfalls of having only one viable choice. He explains that when we present ourselves with only a single option versus abstaining, we fall into a suboptimal pattern where loss aversion can force us into accepting the only available path, even if it’s not the best.

The episode explores several cognitive biases that can distort our decision-making, even when we have multiple options. These include the tendency to choose the middle option in a set (like medium coffee sizes) and the anchoring effect, where an initial number or concept skews our subsequent judgments. Cuttrell also highlights a flaw in traditional pros and cons lists: the outcome can change depending on whether we focus on counting pros or cons, as the quantity of items doesn’t necessarily reflect their importance or weight.

To combat these biases, Cuttrell recommends a more structured approach for significant decisions, such as choosing a college. Instead of starting with the options, he advises first defining your desires, plans, and goals. Create a rubric with weighted categories or requirements, then evaluate your options against this framework. This method shifts the focus from optimizing for the absolute best choice to finding an option that satisfactorily meets your key criteria, maximizing happiness while minimizing time spent deliberating.

Ultimately, the goal is to make more intentional, less biased choices by understanding how our minds work and applying simple frameworks to clarify our priorities and evaluate our options effectively.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to choice and the paradox of choice — Jonathan Cuttrell introduces the episode’s focus on making better choices, referencing the previous discussion on the paradox of choice. He states the goal is to provide practical advice for decision-making to help developers connect to their career purpose and do better work.
  • 00:01:45 — The problem with single-choice framing — Cuttrell points out that we often frame choices as a single option versus abstaining, which isn’t a real choice between two different things. He explains this leads to suboptimal decisions because loss aversion makes us take the only available option. The recommended takeaway is to always seek at least two, and preferably three or four, reasonably equal and competing options.
  • 00:06:45 — Cognitive biases in multi-option choices — Even with multiple options, biases influence us. Cuttrell discusses the tendency to choose the ‘medium’ option in a set (like coffee cup sizes) and the anchoring effect, where an initial number skews subsequent judgments. These biases operate unconsciously and can lead us away from the best choice for our needs.
  • 00:08:49 — Flaws in pros and cons lists — Cuttrell analyzes a common decision-making tool: the pros and cons list. He demonstrates that focusing on counting pros versus cons can lead to different choices, as the quantity of items doesn’t reflect their importance. This flaw is particularly problematic when we engage with positive and negative information unconsciously.
  • 00:11:30 — Structured decision-making framework — For important decisions, Cuttrell advises moving beyond simple pros and cons. He recommends first establishing your goals, desires, and plans. Create a rubric with weighted categories or requirements, then evaluate options against it. This approach prioritizes finding a choice that meets your key criteria over endlessly optimizing for the absolute best, saving time and reducing bias.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2018-06-29T09:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:14:41

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] we’ve talked about choice on the show quite a bit and in the last episode we discussed the

[00:00:08] paradox of choice in today’s episode we’re going to talk about choice a little bit more

[00:00:12] and hopefully i’m going to give you some practical advice for how to make better choices like we did

[00:00:18] in the last episode but some new advice today my name is jonathan cuttrell and you’re listening to

[00:00:22] developer t my goal on the show is to help driven developers connect to their career purpose so they

[00:00:28] can have a positive influence on the people around them and so they can do better work

[00:00:33] so connecting to your purpose this is like fuel for that work that you’re doing but so often we

[00:00:40] don’t really choose the best place for that fuel to go and sometimes our choices are really hard

[00:00:46] to figure out have you ever made a pros and cons list to understand okay what what are the good

[00:00:55] parts of this choice and what are the bad parts of this choice

[00:00:58] you

[00:00:58] choices are such an interesting study a topic to study because there’s so many

[00:01:05] kind of subtopics and so much of the way that our brain works is wrapped up in how we make

[00:01:11] decisions because decisions are ultimately how we want to spend our energy our resources our time

[00:01:20] decisions are about that spend should i take the stairs or the elevator should i eat an

[00:01:28] apple or a piece of cake should i go to university a or university b should i travel abroad or should

[00:01:37] i go to a resort these are very simple uh examples of choices and in this case every choice that i

[00:01:45] have presented in this list only had two options now this is the first thing i want to talk about

[00:01:52] with choice today very often we create two choices that are actually different and that are actually

[00:01:58] only one choice let me explain very often we have a choice to either do something or to abstain from

[00:02:07] doing that thing there isn’t a second option of doing something different we can either learn that

[00:02:15] thing or not we can either go to that place or not interestingly in the choices that i presented

[00:02:23] before we very often fall back to the single choice method which is the single choice method

[00:02:28] uh and in real life most of the time we present ourselves with only single choices and we talked

[00:02:35] about this on the previous episode the idea that when you only have one choice or nothing

[00:02:39] that loss aversion may kick in that you don’t feel like you have any other good option then

[00:02:46] you’re going to take the only option that has any good right so so you’re going to take the

[00:02:51] only available option uh most likely and this is this is difficult and it’s actually not very

[00:02:57] optimum for your decision making so i’m going to take the only available option and i’m going to

[00:02:58] process so the recommended advice and this is kind of a takeaway for today’s episode

[00:03:03] is to always seek at least two and preferably three maybe four reasonably equal options

[00:03:14] and when i say equal i don’t mean that they’re the same thing obviously but instead that they

[00:03:19] actually compete with each other now why do these options need to compete with each other

[00:03:24] well that’s what we’re going to talk about right after today’s sponsor message

[00:03:28] today’s episode is sponsored by reactor reactor has a k instead of a c because these folks are

[00:03:36] based in new york city but they’re originally from finland that’s where the name reactor comes

[00:03:41] from at least and there is no c in the finnish language so now you know a little bit of trivia

[00:03:47] there but reactor has partnered with hbo supercell viacom and neverthink to work on their biggest

[00:03:54] product challenges they partnered with finnair to design a new reactor and they’ve been working

[00:03:58] and build the perfect digital customer journey complete with their mobile apps and a next

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[00:04:10] airline they’re developing their own satellite to explore emerging new space business opportunities

[00:04:15] from hardware to rethinking putting code into space and this is launching into orbit

[00:04:20] later in 2018 reactor is hiring developers and here’s the cool thing if you go to

[00:04:28] and apply at reactor site which is reactor.com slash careers reactor.com with a k slash careers

[00:04:36] then what you’ll see is that they ask you to kind of define your own role they don’t give you the

[00:04:41] definition of the role they want you to explain what you think you’re going to be great at and

[00:04:45] what your kind of dream position would be head over to reactor.com slash careers remember that’s

[00:04:51] thank you again to reactor for sponsoring today’s episode of developer t so once again we’re talking

[00:04:58] about choice in today’s episode and specifically we’re talking about options and how options can

[00:05:03] change our way of thinking and we mentioned the idea that you really should have more than one

[00:05:09] option to choose from because when you’re only choosing one option you’re either choosing yes

[00:05:14] or no this is really not a choice between two things it’s a choice between two realities but

[00:05:19] it’s only a choice between doing one thing or not doing that same thing so it’s kind of the same

[00:05:25] there’s really only one choice there so the

[00:05:28] the recommended advice there of course is to have three or four similar options the similarity is

[00:05:34] important here we need them to be relatively similar to each other so that we can adequate

[00:05:39] adequately uh compare them right um this this idea is that if you have let’s say you you chose

[00:05:46] one option and then you kind of filled in the gaps you you kind of had to go and choose the

[00:05:51] second option just so you could say that you have it right this is a very common procedure

[00:05:58] for example when companies are trying to hire employees they will fill the number of spots that

[00:06:04] they’re supposed to evaluate even if on the very beginning of that process that candidate doesn’t

[00:06:10] seem to be qualified so when you intentionally choose kind of a fake option then of course the

[00:06:18] option that you had already favored is going to win out so it’s important that you actually seek

[00:06:23] out two comparable or competing options

[00:06:28] they’re actually competing and so they have similarly good qualities and perhaps similarly bad

[00:06:33] qualities or at least severity and quantity of those qualities is similar now you still have to

[00:06:40] recognize that there are there are some biases that play into your choices even when you’re

[00:06:45] faced with similar options for example you may kind of choose naturally the medium of any given

[00:06:53] set so let’s say you had three coffee cups to choose from this is why

[00:06:58] sometimes you need to have at least one specific option so you can make the choice right okay i need

[00:07:02] really much more and therefore his sponsorship is stopping me from understanding that the middle

[00:07:14] options the middle options are and you might be paid trueagi and you have enough请 coming in

[00:07:21] from the same region so this is just some kind of graphing down into these segment options to give

[00:07:25] you a look at that as we go on

[00:07:26] Thanks for doing this

[00:07:26] In fact if we only had for example the grande supporting functionality here at starbucks is the most spot of the vienti

[00:07:26] but this holds true regardless of how much coffee is actually in the cup regardless of whether you fill the cup up entirely or not people still tend to choose with that middle option and in fact if we only had for example the grande the venti and the 30 that 30 ounce massive coffee cup then people would start some big coffee and there will be lots and lots of brought versions and more coffee together and so there are some corolles

[00:07:27] would start choosing the venti more often. So this is a strange bias that kind of accidentally

[00:07:34] comes out of our behavior. Another example of a bias that might change your options,

[00:07:39] the way you think about your options, is the framing effect of anchoring, right? So an anchor

[00:07:47] is when you have a number in mind or a concept in mind that kind of sways your future perspective.

[00:07:55] This is particularly true with numbers, even when they are arbitrary. So if you think of a

[00:08:01] very high number, and then I tell you to choose a number between zero and 1,000, you’re likely to

[00:08:07] choose towards the top. Whereas if you think of a very small number, and I tell you to choose a

[00:08:13] number between zero and 1,000, you’re likely to choose from the bottom, right? So this is kind of

[00:08:20] a strange phenomenon, and it happens especially with pricing. So these are ways that our

[00:08:25] choices may become biased without us even really realizing it. Most of us really do order medium

[00:08:32] coffee cup size. But I want to give you some more advice, a little bit more of an unknown bias

[00:08:39] that you can face when you’re kind of comparing two options, right? So let’s say that we go back

[00:08:45] to that pros and cons list that we talked about at the beginning of the episode. You have two

[00:08:49] options, and you write out a pros list, and you write out a cons list.

[00:08:55] The interesting reality of a pros and cons list is that your choice may change depending on if you are

[00:09:03] counting up the pros or counting up the cons. Let me prove this to you. Let’s say you have choice A

[00:09:10] and choice B, and choice A has two pros, and choice B has three pros. However, choice A has

[00:09:21] two cons, and choice B has three cons.

[00:09:25] So if you’re focusing on the cons, then certainly choice A looks better. It has two cons, whereas

[00:09:32] choice B has three cons. However, if you’re focusing on the pros, then choice A has two pros,

[00:09:40] and choice B has three pros. You may want to write this out in case you can’t visualize this,

[00:09:46] but the idea is very simple, that your pros and cons list on the left side very well may just be

[00:09:52] less detail.

[00:09:54] It’s not really

[00:09:55] necessarily that one is better than the other based on your pros and cons list.

[00:10:00] So there are a few ways that you can approach this, and first of all, it’s important to note

[00:10:05] that very often this happens unconsciously, when you’re not actually using a pros and cons list

[00:10:11] and intentionally engaging the positive and the negative information. If you focus on the negative

[00:10:17] information, if there’s a lot of negative information for one option and then not very

[00:10:23] much negative information for the other, then you’re going to have a lot of trouble. So if you’re

[00:10:25] very likely to go with the one that has very little negative information, however, if you are

[00:10:32] focusing on the positive information and it just so happens that there’s more positive information

[00:10:38] for the same option that has a lot of negative information, then it’s very possible that you

[00:10:44] will choose that option anyway. Again, some of this gets a little bit difficult to explain.

[00:10:50] You may want to look at a visual of this. You can actually draw it out and

[00:10:54] kind of cover up the negatives and the positives for yourself, cover up those pros and cons.

[00:11:00] So how can we combat this? Well, the pros and cons list is a good idea. It forces you to actually

[00:11:05] intentionally engage and visualize those negatives and those positives.

[00:11:10] Remember that sometimes the negatives, however, or the positives for that matter, may be weighted

[00:11:16] differently. So you may have a major negative and then a minor positive and then vice versa on the

[00:11:24] other option. So when making decisions, especially very important decisions, of course, you’re not

[00:11:30] going to sit down and go through this process when deciding, you know, what are you going to eat for

[00:11:34] lunch? Well, this is not a decision that warrants all of this kind of intentional processing. But

[00:11:41] when you’re making bigger decisions, like for example, where to go to college, then it’s worth

[00:11:48] sitting down and actually going through some of these processes to try to work out and work

[00:11:53] through your biases.

[00:11:54] We talked about this on the previous episode, but if you, instead of creating an arbitrary pros

[00:12:00] and cons list from your memory, if you instead create at least categories for the pros and cons,

[00:12:07] right? Maybe you provide, let’s use this college example. Maybe you provide dorm room costs as one

[00:12:16] of your pros or cons, and you can do a negative or positive number. Perhaps the dorm room cost is

[00:12:24] not that high, but you can do a negative or positive number. Maybe you can do a negative or

[00:12:24] exactly what you want it to be and it gets a negative one. And then on the other, it’s actually

[00:12:29] pretty good and it gets a positive three, right? And then you can add up these scores. So establish

[00:12:34] some categories that you want to score against. Secondly, because what you really should be doing

[00:12:41] when you’re making choices is choosing the first thing that actually checks all of the important

[00:12:46] boxes for you, right? Instead of trying to optimize for the absolutely best choice, what you really

[00:12:51] should be optimizing for is maximum happiness with the least amount of time spent trying to

[00:12:57] make the choice. Then if you create your list of requirements, then very often, you know, you’re

[00:13:05] going to have one option that meets those requirements and another one that doesn’t

[00:13:09] quite meet the requirements. Or if you have some weighted requirements, for example,

[00:13:14] you want to prioritize certain things over others. Whichever option has your best priorities

[00:13:21] at the top of your list, you’re going to have one option that meets those requirements.

[00:13:21] Those are ways that you can kind of remove that bias, right? So instead of approaching the options

[00:13:29] first, approach your desires, your plans, your goals. Approach that first and then bring that

[00:13:36] to your options and measure your options against that rubric. Thank you so much for listening to

[00:13:42] today’s episode of Developer Tea. Thank you again to today’s sponsor, Reactor. Head over to

[00:13:47] reactor.com. Remember that’s with a K slash career.

[00:13:51] Check out what Reactor has to offer to developers that are looking for a job. Thank you so much for

[00:13:58] listening to today’s episode. If you are enjoying these episodes, these few episodes that we’ve done

[00:14:03] on choice and some of the interviews we’ve done recently, I encourage you to subscribe and whatever

[00:14:09] podcasting app you use. We’re going to continue releasing three episodes a week. So it’s very

[00:14:14] easy to get behind. And some of these episodes, you certainly will find some value in assuming

[00:14:20] you found even just a little bit of value in them. So if you’re interested in that, then go ahead

[00:14:21] and subscribe to this free podcast. So thank you again for subscribing. Thank you so much for

[00:14:31] listening. And until next time, enjoy your tea.

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