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Blogg16. mars 2026

The Dark Side of Optimism

This text was originally published in Dagens Perspektiv . "Think positive," they say, but is a lack of positive thinking really our biggest problem? No, the late Daniel Kahneman would probably have sa...

Blogg1. september 2025

AI as Your Decision Partner

Making good decisions isn't always about knowing more. Often, it's about thinking more clearly. We are all at risk of being fooled by our own brains: We overestimate how right we are, seek confirmatio...

Blogg28. desember 2024

Balanced Decision-Making: A Method for Avoiding the Most Common Decision Traps

My field is decision psychology. In my daily work, I serve as program director at Stiftelsen Dam, a foundation that distributes nearly 400 million NOK annually to health research and other health proj...

Blogg28. desember 2024

Choice Overload: When More Options Lead to Fewer Choices

Nearly a third of those who go on Netflix without clear opinions about what to watch end up not watching anything at all. Why? A version of this text was written for the book "Better Decisions" but wa...

Blogg28. desember 2024

Devil's Advocate: How to Do It

In my book " Better Decisions ," I discuss the traps we fall into when making group decisions. There are many of them, and one of the measures often mentioned to avoid them is "Devil's Advocate." When...

Blogg28. desember 2024

How to Distinguish Good Research from Bad

I've forgotten who the lecturer was, but the person presented the following two BBC articles: Same newspaper, same year, same topic, but two vastly different conclusions. Both cannot be true at the sa...

Blogg28. desember 2024

Pre-Mortem: How to Do It

In my book " Better Decisions ," I write about the traps we fall into when making group decisions and what can be done to avoid them. The "pre-mortem" exercise is one of the techniques you can use. "P...

Blogg28. desember 2024

Seven Books on Decision Psychology You Should Read

What drives our judgments, and what can we do to make better decisions? That is the concern of decision psychology. The field became common knowledge with Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's book " Think...

Blogg28. desember 2024

Who Should Speak First in the Supreme Court?

This post was written after a talk I gave to the Norwegian Supreme Court and was first published in Dagens Næringsliv on January 17, 2025 . Decision psychology is a field with a long and proud researc...

Blogg10. januar 2022

Book Excerpt: Better Decisions

Here you can read the introduction to the book “Better Decisions”. The book is available (in Norwegian) as hardcover , e-book or audiobook . A couple of years ago I was going to my daughter's track an...

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Jan-Ole Hesselberg, psychologist

Jan-Ole Hesselberg is a psychologist, decision science researcher and TV host. He is the Chief Program Officer at the Dam Foundation, one of Norway’s largest research funders, and has led major projec...

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Better Decisions

My main aim with writing "Better Decisions - On the forces that influence your judgments and how control them" was to create a scientifically updated and entertaining book about the pitfalls of human ...

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How well calibrated are you?

When we say we are 90 percent certain, are we right 90 percent of the time? Take the quiz below and help me find out....

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Conflicts of Interest

If psychological research has shown us anything, it is that conflicts of interest have a clear tendency to influence our judgments and behavior. I try to the best of my ability not to let my interests...

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Consulting

Consulting How one designs, implements, and evaluates critical decisions is crucial for decision quality. I offer consulting both for single decisions (e.g., an important board resolution) and in desi...

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Contact

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What is your decision style?

Are you the type who mostly follows your intuition when making decisions? Or do you depend on gathering information and weighing different alternatives against each other? Different people have differ...

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Probability Terms

How do you interpret “possible” compared to others? When PST (Norwegian Police Security Service) comments on the probability of a terror attack, they use terms like “possible” and “unlikely”. How do y...

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Talks on behavior and the brain

Decisions and psychology are relevant to most people, and in recent years I have given hundreds of lectures on the subject. Clients have included KRIPOS, DNB, Equinor, and the Supreme Court of Norway....

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Tests

Tests My Decision App I have created a website - MetaDecide.com - where you can test your decision style and confidence. You also get a tool to map your decision quality. The app is under development,...