RS 4: Would You Let a Coin Toss Decide Your Future?

Daniel Harrington, age 26, was a racecar driver 2 years ago making millions. He felt like he needed a new profession because he was at a place where he didn’t know what to do with himself on a day to day basis. He eventually quit racing and got a master’s at Duke University. He now has a great job for an energy company in Raleigh, North Carolina. But now, he has the same feelings. He’s considering leaving what he is doing now to go somewhere else, or to stay at his current job. He is a VERY indecisive guy.

He flips a coin to make small decisions in his life. When his girlfriend and him decide to go to dinner, they flip a coin or play rock paper scissors to decide where to go.

“Quitting has a bad rap, but strategic quitting could be a great thing!” Sometime quitting has great secondary affects due to the opportunity cost of our jobs, religions, friendships, etc! Freakonomics looks at the benefits of quitting...and flipping a coin? 

A woman who quit running decided to quit her passion for running because she felt like she had gotten the most out of it that she possibly could. She fell into the habit of running and being a runner and didn’t really love it anymore.

A website was created through the Freakonomics webpage. If you have a tough choice or decision, they will walk you through a few steps and if you are still undecided, they will flip a coin for you. Don’t worry, you can even flip for best two out of three. All they ask for in return is for you to fill out a short survey to figure out if quitting or not quitting turns out to be good or bad to be the right decision.

Levitt wants to find out whether or not there are default messages about decision making that people should follow. For example, should we go for the big change or stay safe and remain the same? What is the go to answer or the status quo?

Doesn’t this sound ridiculous? Flipping a coin to decide a decision that could affect you every day? Every year? The rest of your LIFE?! Maybe not. Information is costly! Taking the time to decide what decision should be made based on the pros and cons of the choice you are making is costly. The release that comes from a decision being made is a good one, and not having to waste time thinking about what to do makes it even better.

People may think it is ridiculous that ANOTHER person flips the coin for you. But by filling out information and answering questions to the people at Freakonomics, most people would have hopefully decided what they want to do by the time flipping a coin comes along. There is psychological evidence that if someone else flips a coin for you, you will have less guilt or regret. If you flipped the coin yourself, you would hold regret if the decision ends up not being your most favorable outcome.

When asked if someone brought up a dangerous or potentially violent question, Steve Levvitt didn’t know what to say. He is thinking about adding some more information to the FAQ page. This web page will absolutely become an ethical problem. What if people have questions about whether or not to embezzle money, to kill someone, to put their grandma in a nursing home, to blow up their ex boyfriend’s house, to fail out of a class? I guess they have some more questions to answer before they can answer other people’s questions!