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How to Make Better Decisions | Dr. Michael Platt
@ Andrew Huberman
02/17/25
Takeaways
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
I believe there's a little monkey in all of us, and the similarities in decision-making and social interaction between humans and Old World primates are striking.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The way we explore the world and express creativity is remarkably similar between monkeys and humans, indicating deep evolutionary connections.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The design of our brains allows us to prioritize attention efficiently, which is crucial for navigating our environments and making decisions.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Attention is a prioritization of what we focus on, and it is influenced by both what we are looking for and the characteristics of our environment.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Our attention is shaped by our ancestors' experiences and our own development, making bright, shiny, or loud stimuli particularly attention-grabbing.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
When we assess our environment, our attention is naturally drawn to other people, especially their faces, which are crucial for social interaction.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The marginal value theorem suggests that we abandon a resource when its yield falls below the average for the environment, which applies to social interactions and decision-making.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The emotional state of individuals, such as arousal, can significantly influence attention and decision-making processes.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
When foraging for information online, people tend to leave a website when their information intake rate falls below the average for their recent experiences.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
In a poor environment, we stick with a resource until it's depleted, while in a rich environment, we quickly move on to the easiest options available.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
To improve attention, it's effective to remove distractions, such as keeping your phone out of the room, which significantly enhances working memory.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Understanding how our neural circuits operate can help us develop better strategies for decision-making and attention management.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
There is evidence that maintaining a thought train without visual input can enhance our ability to focus and perform cognitive tasks effectively.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Practices that involve maintaining attention without visual input can help train our ability to focus on tasks that require visual attention.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The concept of warming up the brain for cognitive tasks is not as well understood as warming up for physical activities, but it is equally important.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Studies show that if you precede a creative task with a foraging task, you become more exploratory and willing to take risks in your decisions.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
When we look at a horizon, it relaxes us because panoramic vision is associated with a decrease in autonomic arousal.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Changing the environment or the state that someone is in can effectively influence their cognitive and emotional states, which is a practical and ethical way to impact behavior.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Most people are not familiar with using behavior to increase their endogenous release of neurochemicals that enhance arousal and attention, often relying too much on pharmacology instead.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Attention allocation is influenced by how rich or poor the environment is, and our brains are designed to allocate attention based on the number of different sources present.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The ability to focus on one thing for a period of time is crucial for progress in various aspects of life, including learning, sports, and relationships.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
There are clusters of attention styles among people, ranging from hyper-focused individuals to those who explore too readily, such as those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Entrepreneurs often have a higher rate of attention problems compared to the general population, which can be comorbid with issues like anxiety and bipolar disorder.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Neuroscience provides new tools for hiring by measuring creativity and cognitive performance through engaging tasks rather than relying on self-reported assessments.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The ability to infer what someone else knows or their state of mind, known as theory of mind, develops through early experiences of joint attention with caregivers.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Neurons in different brain areas can respond similarly to the same stimuli, indicating that individual neurons can multitask and pay attention to multiple factors simultaneously.
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Andrew Huberman Cast
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
A brain lesion can lead to significant behavioral deficits that may recover over time due to brain plasticity, but deeper brain lesions can result in permanent deficits without intervention.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Monkeys build and maintain relationships through grooming, which is a way to make friends and allies, and they tend to keep a mental ledger of social investments and returns in their relationships.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The concept of equitable relationships in monkeys suggests that they expect a balance in social interactions, similar to how humans feel urgency or betrayal when communication is unreciprocated.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
In social media interactions, ignoring insults can be a way to avoid feeding into someone's desire for acknowledgment, which can be seen as a form of power dynamics in online behavior.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Testosterone levels in male monkeys can be signaled through physical traits, such as the size of their taint, which indicates their reproductive competence and social status.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Humans and monkeys both exhibit value-based decision-making, where the brain tracks social interactions and the perceived value of relationships, similar to economic decision-making.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
When giving to charity, the activation of reward circuitry in the brain can create a feeling of satisfaction similar to receiving a reward, reinforcing the behavior of giving.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The display of wealth and status in humans can be seen as a modern form of signaling vigor and dominance, similar to behaviors observed in primates.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The brain constantly evaluates the value of potential mates, friends, or coworkers, influenced by social context and hormones like testosterone and estrogen, which adjust the 'volume' of these evaluations.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Oxytocin acts like a volume knob for pro-social interactions, enhancing social behavior and emotional functions.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Oxytocin is released during childbirth and nursing, playing a crucial role in forming bonds between mothers and their infants, and is also involved in social relationships beyond parental bonds.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Oxytocin promotes relaxation and reduces vigilance to threats, making individuals more chill and open to social interactions.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
In male monkeys, administering oxytocin flattens social hierarchies, making dominant individuals friendlier and allowing subordinates to become bolder, fostering more social interactions.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Oxytocin increases pro-social behavior in monkeys, making them more likely to share rewards with others, indicating a boost in altruism.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
In female monkeys, oxytocin enhances social bonding among females but can also increase aggression towards males, possibly due to evolutionary pressures.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Oxytocin enhances behavioral synchrony, which is crucial for building strong relationships and effective teamwork.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
When people engage in deep conversations, their brain activity aligns, leading to increased feelings of closeness and value for each other.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The decision-making process involves weighing evidence about available options against past experiences to compute expected values, guiding choices in various scenarios. Additionally, the speed-accuracy trade-off means that the faster you make a decision, the more mistakes you tend to make, highlighting that taking more time allows for better evidence accumulation and more accurate choices.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
When making important decisions, it's essential to determine whether you need to prioritize accuracy or speed. If accuracy is paramount, you should slow down and take the necessary time to gather information.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Simple strategies like breathing techniques can help reduce arousal and improve decision-making by allowing you to rely more on evidence rather than noise in your environment.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
In decision-making, increasing arousal can lead to a higher likelihood of false positives, where you mistakenly believe something is present when it is not, as well as false negatives, where you think something is absent when it is actually there.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The brain's valuation system is influenced by social information, such as the status and attractiveness of individuals, which can affect our decision-making processes.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
When making choices, people often pay more attention to potential losses than to potential gains, which can lead to loss aversion and impact their decision-making.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The phenomenon of loss aversion suggests that people feel the pain of losing more acutely than the pleasure of winning, which can skew their decision-making processes.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
In advertising, leveraging celebrity endorsements can create a sense of trust and confidence in consumers, influencing their purchasing decisions even for unfamiliar products.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The way we make decisions is influenced by our social context, including the presence of others and their behaviors, which can lead to herd mentality and poor choices in situations like stock markets.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
In a study with monkeys, we found that when they observed another monkey making a decision, they were more likely to mimic that decision, leading to the formation of bubbles in the market.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
When making decisions under high arousal, we often misjudge information, mistaking noise for signal and correlating unrelated factors, which can lead to poor choices.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
If someone pressures you to make a quick decision that isn't an emergency, it's likely a scam; urgency often indicates something is false.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Rationality in decision-making is often misunderstood; we don't always process information dispassionately due to inherent brain constraints and the concept of bounded rationality.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Our brains are designed for environments that existed thousands of years ago, which creates a mismatch with the fast-paced, complex world we live in today, leading to stress and decision fatigue.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
People in industrialized societies often experience more misery due to sedentary lifestyles and poor diets compared to those living in subsistence environments, who tend to be healthier and happier.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The quality of life in later years is influenced by lifestyle choices, including moderation in drinking and consistent daily routines, which can lead to better health outcomes as we age.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Decision-making can be influenced by whether one is in a favorable or unfavorable environment; those with resources can invest in long-term health, while others focus on immediate survival.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The concept of 'serial monogamy' in pursuits can lead to greater happiness; individuals who engage deeply in various interests over time often find fulfillment and success.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Empathy towards brands can be measured; Apple users show strong emotional responses to news about their brand, while Samsung users often exhibit indifference or even pleasure at negative news about Apple.
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Dr. Michael Platt
02/17/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The loyalty of Apple users is driven by a sense of community and belonging, while Samsung users often choose their brand out of opposition to Apple rather than genuine affinity.