How to choose the objectively best toothpaste? car? world?
"Dijksterhuis then gave them a few minutes to consciously contemplate their decision.
In this “easy” situation, more than 50 % of the subjects ended up choosing the best car...
After he gave them the automotive facts, he distracted them with some simple word games for a few minutes.
He then interrupted their fun and asked the subjects, rather suddenly, to choose a car...
they made significantly worse choices than those who were allowed to consciously think about the cars.
so far, so obvious...
He repeated the experiment, only this time he rated each car in twelve different categories...
In addition... Their brain had to deal with forty-eight separate pieces of information.
Did conscious deliberation still lead to the best decision?
Dijksterhuis found that people given time to think in a rational manner – they could carefully contemplate each alternative –
now chose the ideal car less than 25 % of the time. In other words, they performed worse than random chance.
However, subjects who were distracted for a few minutes found the best car nearly 60 % of the time"
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/how-should-we-make-hard-decisions/