Why two men committing the same crime get different chances at a parole • Hacker News Board

Re: Why two men committing the same crime get different chances at a parole

#41

Post by snitko » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 10:10 AM UTC

lpolovets wrote: post #17

The article was written by one of the coauthors of Willpower ( http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human... ). I read this book last week and it was terrific . A great blend of fascinating studies and practical advice. Also, while many pop psych books rehash the same studies over and over, Willpower featured many results that I had not encountered before, like these findings about parole hearings.…

Couldn't agree more, a great book. As far as I understood it was written by a journalist, but a journalist closely working with scientists. He tells a great story and it definitely is nothing like Gladwell speculations.

Re: Why two men committing the same crime get different chances at a parole

#42

Post by wnight » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 4:14 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #23

cletus wrote: post #14

That was really interesting and the title should've been different. I assumed it was the same story from a few months ago about the statistical likelihood of parole on the time of day but it's far more than that. Three things sprung to mind: The first is that I've often said I like the food we get at Google because food is, for me, a bunch of decisions I just don't care about. Where to go? What to order from the menu…

Google rose to a prominence in an era of portal pages. Yahoo in particular had a home page without hundreds of links. Google presented you with a logo, a text box, two buttons and Yep. Also consider the superior experience of reading a news article (like this one) in single-page mode instead of page by page. Clicking on a link feels a lot more like "a decision" than turning the page of a book, which flows naturally.…

I think a lot of that has to do with how in Vietnam they killed babies - and most importantly, heard uncontested stories of this sort of this from everywhere and most did nothing to stop it.

It'd be nice to blame this on something nice and tidy, like the public and their darned perceptions, but I think it's because Vietnam was just a dirtier war. (At least morally dirtier than much of what WW2 was for the common soldier, for instance.)

Re: Why two men committing the same crime get different chances at a parole

#43

Post by rhizome » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 5:31 PM UTC

brador wrote: post #7

Interesting that they mention the Dell website for decision making. 4 times this year I've decided to purchase a new computer and spent hours trying to figure out what to buy from the Dell website. I have yet to upgrade.

I think they should fire the person who convinced them that the best first question a potential customer should have answered should be "home office? personal? corporate?"

The fact that they don't allow you to select from their entire range turned me off from ever considering them years ago.

Re: Why two men committing the same crime get different chances at a parole

#44

Post by bumbledraven » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 9:18 PM UTC

I have not seen research on the subject, but I expect that use of commitment devices can reduce decision fatigue. Steven King's story "Quitter's, Inc." gives an extreme example of the efficacy of commitment devices, but a more mundane example might be making an agreement with a friend to pay them $100 for each day you cheat on your diet in the next week. If you're an honest person, you won't be tempted by the thought of cheating, since that slice of cake won't be worth $100 to you. You don't have to constantly decide whether to cheat on your diet; you only have to decide once per week (or per month, or however long of a term you set for your "commitment contract"). What's more, decisions pertaining to the use of commitment devices seem to be made by an aspect of you that looks out for your long-term welfare, not the part that simply wants a donut now.