We’re subject to inherent biases, false confidence, irrational risk aversion, and any number of decision-making pitfalls. Katherine Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, who has researched and written extensively on decision-making, says: “The science simply doesn’t support the value of following your gut1—in fact, it supports exactly the opposite approach to decision-making.” The psychologist and decision-making expert Daniel Levitin concurs: If you make decisions based on instinct, he says, “your gut is going to be wrong more than it is right.”
