I think most people use mental models to geht to decisions. It is just that these mental models are usually implicit — so if you would ask somebody what their mental model behind a specific decision was they might not be able to tell you.
These mental models are explicit, this is good because it moves a process that was subconscious into the light of day.
And why is this good? Because we all encounter situations in which our existing ways of thinking and deciding will fail. Isn't it good to then be able to shape the direction of your own thoughts in such a situation? Of course this takes a little practise: especially in stress situations most people wouldn't think about the way they are thinking even for a moment, because it is maybe a bit too meta and needs to be thought on purpose.
In my experience this is the best thing you can do in stress situations (unless it is a matter of life and death) is to give yourself a moment, observe yourself from the outside and actively decide which way you are going to think about the solution.
So mental models can be a way to break up your own thinking and avoid doing something out of reflex or because you always do it that way. Of course blindly following mental models and applying them to everything can also be a bad thing, like every tool could if you just use it wrong enough.
The overhead of explicit mental models means their terrible for any complex decision making process. Try an apply them to an extremely well studied problem like say chess and you still get stomped by people with even basic skills. Less obviously all real world problems you need to actually consider end up being complex with a huge number of subtle interactions.
What’s actually useful 99.9% of the time is either external models that can run on computers, or implicit models developed by synthesis of knowledge and practice.
PS: Mental models can be useful in extremely stressful situations where there is no need to act quickly or come up with complex solutions. There is a hurricane forecasted to hit this area in 5 days doesn’t need a great solution just a set of reasonable choices.
Comments
I think most people use mental models to geht to decisions. It is just that these mental models are usually implicit — so if you would ask somebody what their mental model behind a specific decision was they might not be able to tell you.
These mental models are explicit, this is good because it moves a process that was subconscious into the light of day.
And why is this good? Because we all encounter situations in which our existing ways of thinking and deciding will fail. Isn't it good to then be able to shape the direction of your own thoughts in such a situation? Of course this takes a little practise: especially in stress situations most people wouldn't think about the way they are thinking even for a moment, because it is maybe a bit too meta and needs to be thought on purpose.
In my experience this is the best thing you can do in stress situations (unless it is a matter of life and death) is to give yourself a moment, observe yourself from the outside and actively decide which way you are going to think about the solution.
So mental models can be a way to break up your own thinking and avoid doing something out of reflex or because you always do it that way. Of course blindly following mental models and applying them to everything can also be a bad thing, like every tool could if you just use it wrong enough.
The overhead of explicit mental models means their terrible for any complex decision making process. Try an apply them to an extremely well studied problem like say chess and you still get stomped by people with even basic skills. Less obviously all real world problems you need to actually consider end up being complex with a huge number of subtle interactions.
What’s actually useful 99.9% of the time is either external models that can run on computers, or implicit models developed by synthesis of knowledge and practice.
PS: Mental models can be useful in extremely stressful situations where there is no need to act quickly or come up with complex solutions. There is a hurricane forecasted to hit this area in 5 days doesn’t need a great solution just a set of reasonable choices.