{"id":14684,"date":"2025-09-08T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/?p=14684"},"modified":"2025-09-05T13:50:49","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T11:50:49","slug":"want-better-decisions-think-like-a-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/want-better-decisions-think-like-a-child\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to Make Better Decisions? Learn to Think Like a Child"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is the &#8220;Learning Trap&#8221;?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you stick with the services of an unreliable, outdated company, even though you know others do it better? Do you avoid someone just because they made a bad first impression? <strong>This is cognitive inertia\u2014the trap we get stuck in when we fail to question our own judgments and don\u2019t explore other options<\/strong>. So\u2014how do you make better decisions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Professor Brett Hayes from the University of New South Wales decided to figure out how to break adults out of the vicious cycle of bad decisions. <strong>Behavioral psychologists have been looking at this phenomenon<\/strong> for years, but now his team has announced: we have a way to stop this mechanism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;We see a common mechanism here\u2014a vicious cycle. It starts with a negative experience that creates a false belief. This, in turn, leads you to avoid a particular person or become reluctant to look for a solution to a problem, which makes you lose the chance to correct it&#8230; and the cycle repeats endlessly,&#8221;<\/em> explains Prof. Brett Hayes on the <a href=\"https:\/\/news.unsw.edu.au\/en\/before-the-lump-a-simple-blood-test-to-detect-cancer-early\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">university&#8217;s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prof. Hayes emphasizes that <strong>anyone can fall into a learning trap<\/strong>\u2014regardless of their predisposition. This doesn&#8217;t mean that we always make bad decisions, but that many of them could simply be better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;Our goal is to create strategies that help people break free from learning traps, or cognitive inertia. Children seem to have a natural gift for this\u2014they explore the world regardless of the consequences, even if it sometimes ends badly,&#8221;<\/em> explains Prof. Hayes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You might like to read:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/thinking-errors-you-repeat-6-traps-to-break-free\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">When Logic Fails: 6 Thinking Traps That Hold You Back<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Do Children Make Better Decisions Than Adults?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>In their research, scientists had children and adults make the same decisions. <strong>They noticed that under identical conditions, the minors performed much better than the adults<\/strong>. According to the researchers, this is because young people don&#8217;t focus so much on the consequences of bad decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, children are less likely to fall into the vicious cycle of learning traps. Even after a bad experience, they are more willing to go back and try again\u2014and often discover that things are not so bad after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scientists have two theories for this. The first states that children are more easily distracted, so instead of stopping at the first satisfactory option\u2014as adults do\u2014they check all the possibilities. The second assumes that the youngest simply value the process of exploring the world more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;They simply want to know how the world works and are willing to pay the price of losing a few points or golden stars along the way,&#8221;<\/em> added Prof. Hayes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Read the original article:<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/jak-podejmowac-najlepsze-decyzje-postepuj-jak-dziecko\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Chcesz podejmowa\u0107 lepsze decyzje? Naucz si\u0119 my\u015ble\u0107 jak dzieci<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have proven that children often make better decisions than adults. The key lies in their courage to experiment and their smaller fear of making mistakes\u2014a trap we fall into almost every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":14685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[1708,1607,1506,1709,1004,798],"class_list":["post-14684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-childhood-mindset","tag-cognitive-bias","tag-decision-making","tag-how-to-make-decisions","tag-personal-development","tag-psychology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Want better decisions? Think like a child.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Adults fear mistakes, children don&#039;t. Scientists reveal how to overcome cognitive inertia and make smarter decisions. Think like a child.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/want-better-decisions-think-like-a-child\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Want better decisions? Think like a child.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Adults fear mistakes, children don&#039;t. Scientists reveal how to overcome cognitive inertia and make smarter decisions. Think like a child.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/want-better-decisions-think-like-a-child\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Holistic News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/portalHolisticNews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-08T06:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/think-like-a-child.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"703\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patrycja Krzeszowska\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@news_holistic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@news_holistic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Patrycja Krzeszowska\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/holistic.news\\\/en\\\/want-better-decisions-think-like-a-child\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/holistic.news\\\/en\\\/want-better-decisions-think-like-a-child\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Patrycja Krzeszowska\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/holistic.news\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/00d8484052b491e0dbe93d6ee7deef88\"},\"headline\":\"Want to Make Better Decisions? 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