pull down to refresh

Mathematicians suggest the "37% rule" for your life's biggest decisions (2022)bigthink.com/neuropsych/the-37-percent-rule/
1826 sats \ 14 comments \ @south_korea_ln 21h science
I just sent a similar link to this one to my wife, as she is pondering making a big life decision, but isn't sure if she should take the plunge. Not sure it'll stick as math isn't her forte, so let me know if you have some good video that will get the message across.
Mathematicians have given us an answer: 37%. The basic idea is that, if you need to make a decision from 100 different options, you should sample and discard (or hold off on) the first 37. The 37% rule is not some mindless, automatic thing. It’s a calibration period during which you identify what works and what does not. From the rejected 37%, we choose the best and keep that information in our heads moving forward. If any subsequent options beat that benchmark standard, then you should stick with that option to get the best ultimate outcome.
I've known the theory for a while now, but I'm quite impulsive in my decision making, so I don't think I've ever consciously implemented this rule.
Have you?
What was the story?
write
preview
related posts
134 sats \ 6 replies \ @SimpleStacker 21h
That's..... interesting. I've never heard of this rule. I wonder what are the underlying probabilistic features of decision making that drive this rule of thumb. It must be some process of learning about the underlying mean and variance of the quality distribution of options.
I don't think I've ever consciously implemented this idea.... but I can't even really think of situations where i gave myself a fixed period of time to make a decision out of many potential options either...
reply
110 sats \ 5 replies \ @south_korea_ln OP 21h
Also known as the secretary problem.
reply
10 sats \ 4 replies \ @SimpleStacker 20h
Yep so you're using the first 37% of trials to sample the distribution basically
reply
10 sats \ 1 reply \ @south_korea_ln OP 20h
Yeah. It's quite simplistic.
It assumes the choices can be ranked, i.e. you can clearly say one choice is better than the other. Also, you'd have to be sure you can perfectly time each time a choice is offered to you. Also, you cannot go back on an initial decision.
To buy a house:
  • how do you decide which house is better than the other? Quite subjective. And your subjectiveness will be influenced by outside factors (government asking a friendly journalist to say rates are going up/down) that are time-dependent.
  • you might find 37 houses on the market during the first 37 days, but only 3 during the next 63.
  • you could change your mind and contact a previous house owner to ask if the house is still available.
  • etc...
But all in all, it's just a fun number to highlight that you shouldn't FOMO and take your time to make a decision.
Luckily, I did not apply that formula when picking who to marry... wonder if she will ask tonight if I applied this rule when starting to date her~~
reply
71 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 19h
In real life you probably won't see 37 or 100 houses
10 is more realistic ... after seeing 3.7 or 4 homes you are ready to take the plunge
reply
0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 19h
1/e = 0.37
reply
10 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 16h
Natural log e
reply
13 sats \ 1 reply \ @Car 18h
Literally me and @ek were talking about this the other day in PlebLab. 🤣
reply
21 sats \ 0 replies \ @south_korea_ln OP 16h
Great minds think alike.
That, or the algorithm just thought we all should know about this around the same time.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 10h
How many women did you date before marrying your current wife?
Serious question and relevant to this topic
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @endothermicdev 13h
There's a museum in NYC called spyscape. They have you play a series of personal assessment games to evaluate different metrics - one of them was your risk tolerance. In this game you have four or five chances to inflate a balloon, each of which can randomly pop, with a goal is to maximize the total air inflated. My instinct was to inflate the first balloon all the way to distruction, because otherwise you have zero information to know when you should stop. The second balloon I also inflated a bit recklessly, but stopped around the failure level of the first, though maybe slightly higher. The third popped at a relatively lower level, and so I played the last two slightly more conservatively.
I thought it was a fascinating test, and there must be an optimal strategy, but I had trouble rationalizing/verbalizing my approach. Anyway, it's nice to see the real world analog to this problem and that the optimal strategy can be rationalized with math!
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 14h
When it comes to major life decisions, its very important to take time to make your decision. Especially financial ones that can effect your future.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 16h
YEEEES!
This one is incredibly handy. I wonder if there's any evidence of people using it "in the field" and having good/bad outcomes with it
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 19h
it's the marriage or dating or secretary problem
1/e is approximately 37%
reply