Wednesday 16 November 2022 07:17 PM Are you indecisive? It means you're intelligent, according to science trends now
You've probably beaten yourself up for spending hours deciding what to wear on a date or whether to ask for a raise.
But indecision may actually be a sign of intelligence, according to psychologists.
Researchers at the University of Dresden in Germany presented 1,300 people with hypothetical, real-world scenarios.
Those who took longer to make up their mind were less prone to making a decision solely based on their beliefs — known as confirmation bias.
They were also better at analyzing someone's behavior based on context rather than an assessment of their personality — helping them avoid correspondence bias.
Dr Jana-Maria Hohnsbehn, a psychologist who led the research, said: 'The general experience of being ambivalent needs to be embraced.
'It can give us necessary pause, signaling to us that things are complex and that we need more time to engage in more careful thought about our decision.'
About one in five Americans — or 20 per cent — believe they are indecisive, surveys suggest.
Some people beat themselves up for taking hours to reach a decision. But psychologists say this may be a sign of intelligence
The study — published in Personality and Individual Differences — was a meta-analysis of five previous papers.
These presented participants with real-world cases, such as deciding whether someone should keep their job or assessing their personality.
Answers were then assessed to determine whether participants had 'trait ambivalence' — the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.
Scientists
