Decision fatigue
"[3] For example, major politicians and businessmen such as former United States President Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg have been known to reduce their everyday clothing down to one or two outfits in order to limit the number of decisions they make in a day.
Decision fatigue is thought to be a result of unconscious, psychobiological processes, and is a reaction to sustained cognitive, emotional and decisional load, as opposed to a trait or deficiency.
[17] "Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people...can't resist the dealer's offer to rustproof their new car.
"[18] Dean Spears of Princeton University has argued that decision fatigue caused by the constant need to make financial trade-offs is a major factor in trapping people in poverty.
"If a trip to the supermarket induces more decision fatigue in the poor than in the rich – because each purchase requires more mental trade-offs – by the time they reach the cash register, they'll have less willpower left to resist the Mars bars and Skittles.
Florida State University social psychologist Roy Baumeister has also found that it is directly tied to low glucose levels, and that replenishing them restores the ability to make effective decisions.
[1] The "process of choosing may itself drain some of the self's precious resources, thereby leaving the executive function less capable of carrying out its other activities.
[3] "[S]ome degree of failure at self regulation" is at the root of "[m]ost major personal and social problems", such as debt, "underachievement at work and school" and lack of exercise.
[24] Similarly, Tierney notes that "C.F.O.s [are] prone to disastrous dalliances late in the evening", after a long day of decision-making.
[18] With regard to self-regulation in legal regulation: One research study found that the decisions judges make are strongly influenced by how long it has been since their last break.
"We find that the percentage of favorable rulings drops gradually from ≈65% to nearly zero within each decision session and returns abruptly to ≈65% after a break.
A study by Shai Danziger, Jonathan Levav, and Liora Avnaim-Pesso from Columbia Business School showed that the percentage of favourable rulings by judges on parole boards in a prison dropped gradually (from around 65% to almost 0%) within each ‘decision session’ recorded, but would return to around 65% after a break.
Decisional conflict is a state wherein an individual is uncertain about which course of action to take when deciding between various options involves regret, risk or challenge to their values.
Stanford University Professor of Psychology Carol Dweck found "that while decision fatigue does occur, it primarily affects those who believe that willpower runs out quickly."
