Deciding How To Decide: Self-Control and Meta-Decision Making.
Many different situations related to self control involve competition between two routes to decisions: default and frugal versus more resource-intensive. Examples include habits versus deliberative decisions, fatigue versus cognitive effort, and Pavlovian versus instrumental decision making. We propose that these situations are linked by a strikingly similar core dilemma, pitting the opportunity costs of monopolizing shared resources such as executive functions for some time, against the possibility of obtaining a better outcome. We offer a unifying normative perspective on this underlying rational meta-optimization, review how this may tie together recent advances in many separate areas, and connect several independent models. Finally, we suggest that the crucial mechanisms and meta-decision variables may be shared across domains.
New York University, 4 Washington Place, NY 10003, USA.
Y-Lan
YL
Boureau
New York University, 4 Washington Place, NY 10003, USA.
Peter
P
Sokol-Hessner
New York University, 4 Washington Place, NY 10003, USA. Electronic address: ndaw@princeton.edu.
Nathaniel D
ND
Daw
D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D000068356:Self-Control