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Another Reason Why You Should Sleep on It Before Making an Important Decision

ves, once again, that we are easily deceived by first impressions. Most of the items inside each box weren’t worth much -- an old alarm clock, for example, or a potted plant.

A pattern quickly emerged: When the participants had to make a decision right away, they tended to remember and judge boxes not by the entirety of their contents, but rather by the first few items they came across. “We found that people are strongly biased by first impressions,” said lead author Dr. Allie Sinclair, Ph.D., who did the research as part of her doctorate in the lab of Dr. Alison Adcock, M.D., Ph.D., a Duke professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. “They made more rational choices, equally favoring boxes with clusters of valuable items at the beginning, middle, or end,” Sinclair said.

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