Process vs outcome accountability: the case against.
Research on process vs outcome accountability found that judging reasoning helps on simple tasks. However, that advantage does not carry over to complex tasks where the pieces interact. Leaving a job is complex, and decision journals have no trial behind them.
Process vs outcome accountability on a complex choice.
Bart De Langhe, Stijn Van Osselaer and Berend Wierenga published this in 2011. Holding people to their reasoning improved judgment on simple elemental tasks. But the advantage did not generalise to complex configural tasks. A configural task is one where the pieces interact.
So leaving qualifies. Your money interacts with your partner's tolerance, your health, your timing and an unseen market.
The risk of overthinking reasons for a choice.
There is a second objection. Timothy Wilson and colleagues showed in 1989 that analysing reasons can leave people less satisfied. Because writing favours reasons that are easy to word, it can bury the ones really driving you. In short, overthinking reasons for a choice has a known cost.
Does a decision journal work at all.
So does a decision journal work? No peer-reviewed trial could be found. Also, there is no direct evidence that writing ahead reduces hindsight bias. Setting a review date has no evidence either. Instead, the exercise is an argument built from two solid findings, and an argument is worth less than a result.
Test process vs outcome accountability on your own page.
Write your reasons, then circle any that feel easy to say but not true.
Add one messy reason you struggled to word, since those often drive you most.
From the book.
Pre-specifying what would change your mind: this one borrows its credibility from science, where registering a hypothesis before you see the data is now standard practice. It's a good analogy. It is not a study of people deciding whether to quit a job.
I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job, chapter 14: A decision you can defend later
Questions about process vs outcome accountability.
What does process vs outcome accountability research say about complex decisions?
Judging reasoning helped on simple tasks. The advantage did not generalise to complex tasks where the pieces interact.
Is there proof that decision journals work?
No peer-reviewed trial could be found. They are widely recommended but tested nowhere.
Then why write the page at all?
Outcome bias is strong, and justification shapes distant regret. Together they suggest recording your reasons before the outcome arrives.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 14, “A decision you can defend later”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Outcome bias: why you grade choices by results.
- 02 Regret of inaction: thinner than the coffee mug.
- 03 Why some regrets hurt more: the reason you gave.
- 04 Process vs outcome accountability: the case against.
- 05 Decision journal template: one signed page.
- 06 Business phone number banned: the mistake I can name.
- 07 Starting a business after failure: what data says.