I usually ask my mom for help when it comes to making big decisions. “Mom! Should I really buy this car? Should I really go to Loyola? Should I really pick up and move to LA?” Frankly, I don’t know why I ask her anymore, because her advice, 90% of the time, is “sleep on it”. Maybe she’s onto something, but the scientific fields seem to be pretty split on whether or not sleeping on a big decision actually “works”. Of course, the important question I think we should be considering here is- how do we know that it works? Decisions often are deeply personal and thus, subjective.
An article in the Harvard Business Review includes an interview with Rebecca Spencer, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Spencer conducted research on sleep and decision making using a low-stakes situation, buying a laptop case. In the study, half of the participants received the information regarding the laptop cases they could choose from at night, just before they went to bed, and the other half of the participants received the information in the morning, as their day was just getting started. Each group was asked to make a decision 12 hours after receiving the information. In response to my previous question, Spencer’s study measured satisfaction in relation to the purchase made. Surprisingly, the participants who “slept on” their decision actually felt less satisfied in their decision than those who did not. However, those who reviewed the information about the laptop cases before sleeping remembered more about the specific details of the items, specifically they remembered more positives than negatives.
Spencer hypothesized that the lack of satisfaction felt by participants who “slept on” their decisions might be caused by the memories of the positive attributes of the items they did not choose to purchase. In terms of the potential outcomes when “sleeping on” bigger, high-stakes decisions (like deciding to pick up everything you own and moving to Southern California, like me!) Spencer hypothesized that sleep and its effect on how we remember things would play a similar role in high-stakes decisions as it did in low-stakes decisions. The example of decision making in terms of firing people is made- and she says that comparing the positives of each employee would make this decision challenging, as the positive attributes would be more solidified in our mind than the negative attributes. Comparing positives to negatives is easy, but comparing positives to positives is difficult.
Relating these experimental and hypothetical situations and their outcomes- or potential outcomes- to my own experience making a huge decision, I slept several weeks on it, really. It started as an idea for after college, back when I was still in high school, and eventually, this year, I made it work for me now (as in, I leave in 12 days!). But I think Spencer’s research touched on something very important- sleep makes us view things more positively. I certainly have experienced this in regards to my own decision! After “sleeping on” this decision for a while, I am recognizing both the positives of moving and the positives of staying in Chicago.
So does “sleeping on it” work? In a sense, but in my opinion, making well-informed choices and taking the time necessary to really delve into the factors of a decision is key. Making pro and con lists might seem cheesy, but they can help us keep ourselves realistic about the negatives after a long night of sleeping on a decision.
Berinato, S. (2016). “Sleeping on It” Doesn’t Lead to Better Decisions. Harvard Business Review, 30-31.
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