Decision-making is a complicated process especially when it involves the tricky pros and cons. While some people would advise you to "sleep on it," a new study is trying to explore what really is with sleep that influences good decision-making.
Yahoo Health reports a study published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making found mixed results after conducting two experiments with the use of laptop satchels. A group of researchers led by Uma R. Karmarkar from Harvard Business School gathered volunteers to decide on actually buying a bag while displaying photos of different satchels with both its positive and negative attributes.
The participants were then asked to rate their interest in owning a satchel twice with a 12-hour interval between both sessions. To find out the effects of sleep, the first group was scheduled to one morning session and one evening session, while the second group had its first session in the evening and another session the next morning.
Aside from asking the participants which of the satchels they wished to buy, the researchers also had them recall all the attributes they could to check on whether or not sleep has affected their memory. Once they made up their decisions, the researchers then asked the participants on how positively they felt about the quality of what they've decided on and if they would actually spend their money on it.
"Our results demonstrate that a time period that includes normal nighttime sleep has distinct and complex effects on several elements of the decision process. Sleeping on a decision engendered more positive thoughts about the choice set," the researchers wrote. "It might be assumed that this would make people feel better about their choice and more interested in pursuing it."
"However, counter to predictions based on previous literature, as well as common assumptions, sleep failed to improve perceptions of decision quality and indeed seemed to make participants more reluctant to consider commitment to the preferred item (e.g., spending money to purchase it)," the researchers added. "Given the novelty of these findings, it will be important for future research to investigate the effects of sleep on a broad range of decision types."
The researchers wish to conduct further studies to explore more of these factors.
