Why you should ALWAYS trust your gut: Second-guessing yourself leads to worse decisions, scientists find
- Researchers looked at betting habits of 150 sports gamblers to come to finding
- Found those who stuck to their initial prediction were correct 20% more often
- Study ‘can be applied to any situation where people make guesses about future’
People who second-guess themselves tend to make worse decisions than those who trust their gut, research suggests.
Scientists analysed the betting habits of 150 people and found those who changed their mind were wrong almost a fifth more than people who stuck to their guns.
The researchers say their findings would apply in any situation where people have to make educated guesses about the future.
They speculate that over-analysing situations confuses the mind and stops people from thinking clearly.
People who second-guess themselves tend to make worse decisions than those who trust their gut, research suggests (stock)
The study was led by a trio of British economists from the University of Reading and University of East Anglia.
They drew on data from the Superbru Premier League Predictor Game – an online betting website where players guess the scores in English top tier football games.
A total of 57,000 individual predictions spanning 380 football games in the English Premier League during the 2017/18 season were analysed.
Users made initial score predictions days, or even weeks, in advance and were able to were allowed to revise them up until the match started.
The researchers presumed that revised scores would be more accurate that unchanged ones.
This is because gamblers normally change their mind after news of an injury to a star player, or doing further research about the team.
But analysis showed those who changed their prediction only got the score right 7.7 per cent of the time.
By comparison, players who stuck to their gut instinct were correct 9.3 per cent of the time.
This means that revised predictions were about 17 per cent less accurate than those that had never changed.
The researchers note that revisions to original predictions were infrequent, with players only changing their mind one in 25 times.