What leads to poor decision making?

Those who follow cricket would never forget  March 3, 2003, this was the date when  South Africa tasted another embarrassing exit from a World Cup, that too on home soil. They needed a victory in their last league game, they dramatically tied with Sri Lanka as captain Shaun Pollock was left to rue it. For those who are not aware of this game or don’t follow cricket let me explain this in brief.

Sri Lanka made 268 runs and this was a modest target for South Africa. They played well but then it started raining and at that stage South Africa needed  46 runs in 32 deliveries. Next ball Boucher advanced down the track to loft Muralitharan for a six over wide long-on. The D/L par at the end of the over read 229 and the crowd celebrated as if their side had won. Boucher pumped his fists as the ball cleared the fence. The celebrations were certainly premature. They had to get one more than the par score to register a win. Next ball was played by him as a defensive shot and then rain stopped the match.

What a shame, SA was knocked off the league because of poor calculation.

Most of the times we all fall into this trap of miscalculation and taking wrong decisions; At times we rely too much on our Gut Feel and make wrong choices.

Let’s play a small game to check this out, answer these questions and the person who answers them fastest wins the game. You can write your answers in the comment box along with time taken to answer. (Though I have mentioned the answers in the footnote section for you to compare.)

1. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball.
   How much does the ball cost?
   _____ cents
2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets,
   how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
   _____ minutes
3. In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake,
   how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?
   _____ days

The original test penned by Dr. Frederick and is known as “Cognitive reflection test (CRT)”. Source – Wikipedia

Foot Notes :

The intuitive answers to these questions that “system 1” gives typically are: 10 cents, 100 minutes, and 24 days; while the correct solutions are: 5 cents, 5 minutes, and 47 days.