More on Decision Making

When people play this game, the progression is usually something like the following: They ask "Does (4, 6, 8) satisfy the rule?" Yes. The adventurous then proceed to ask about (1, 2, 3)? Yes, again. How about (5, 10, 15)? Once again, yes. At this point, people decide that they've seen enough data and guess the rule: The three numbers have to increase by a constant amount. Was that your guess?

If so, then before making your guess, you would have done well to ask whether (1, 2, 47) satisfies the rule. Surprise, it does. How about (3, 2, 1)? That doesn't. As you've probably now realized, the rule is a really simple (okay, dumb!) one: Any three increasing numbers will do. The point is that the vast majority of people stop and guess the rule (incorrectly) before they've asked a question that could discriminate between their hypothesis and various alternatives. To test a hypothesis, try to disprove it.

In this Java applet, the computer keeps track of whether or not you ever received a "numbers don't fit" before making your guess. If so, you get a little congratulations.

Readers who are interested in more detail should take a look at Judgement in Managerial Decision Making by Max Bazerman, a gifted professor at Northwestern's Kellog School of Management. Our article in the Harvard Business Review (November--December, 1996) takes a look at the decision-making skills of Andrew Grove, the CEO of Intel, in a review of his new book "Only the Paranoid Survive."

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