Decision fatigue

What it is

The quality of decisions can deteriorate after a long run of choices, pushing people toward defaults or shortcuts. (How much of this is "willpower depletion" is disputed.)

Related

• Default effect bias
  When we are tired of deciding, we take the default.
• Paradox of choice bias
  More options mean more decisions, which tires us and lowers decision quality.
• Overthinking bias
  Excess deliberation is a main cause of fatigue.
• Stress-influence tendency bias
  Pressure and exhaustion both erode the quality of decisions.

Appears in

• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly#53: Decision fatigue

References

• Wikipedia: Decision fatigue en.wikipedia.org
• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: List of cognitive biases en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: Cognitive bias codex en.wikipedia.org

More in “Deciding and acting: incentives, loss and commitment”