What strategy do you use to make tough life decisions like whether to end a relationship, quit your job, or go back to school? Maybe you weigh the advantages and disadvantages. Maybe you go with your sixth sense. Or maybe, if you’re like most people, you simply do nothing. After all, we have a tendency to prefer the status quo (现状), and focus more on the potential losses involved with change rather than the potential benefits.

But here’s a simpler strategy: When you’re indecisive about a big life decision, choose the path of change. That’s the takeaway of research recently published by Steven Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago.

For the study, Levitt asked people who were facing tough decisions to flip(抛) a digital coin on the website FreakonomicsExperiments.com. The coin tosses were randomized, with one side representing change, the other status quo. The study asked more than 20,000 participants to make whichever decision the coin toss directed, and then report back on how things played out after two and six months.

Of course, not everyone followed through. The two-month survey found that participants chose change less frequently than they had initially predicted they would. After six months, however, this tendency toward inaction disappeared. But most surprising were the results on well-being. At both the two and six-month marks, most people who chose change reported feeling happier, better off, and that they had made the correct decision.

The study had some limitations. One is that its participants weren’t selected randomly. Another limitation is that participants whose decision didn’t play out well might have been less likely to report back on their status after two and six months. Still, the study does suggest that people who are on the edge of a tough decision are probably better off going with change. Levitt isn’t suggesting you flip a coin to make all decisions. But coin-flipping does seem to have some benefits. Levitt notes that some people might prefer giving in to their fate to randomness in order to avoid regret. But you can also use randomness a bit more sensibly. When facing a tough decision, you could flip a coin and, upon seeing the outcome, notice whether you feel relief or fright. If you feel relieved, that’s probably the path you should choose.

【小题1】What is most people’s priority when making hard choices?

A．Calculating potential losses.

B．Valuing potential benefits.

C．Following inner voice of one’s mind.

D．Making a change to the status quo.

【小题2】What are the findings of the two surveys?

A．Making changes brought most participants happiness.

B．All participants gave immediate feedback on their status.

C．Participants’ action agreed with their initial prediction.

D．More participants remained inactive after six months.

【小题3】What is a limitation of the study?

A．The randomness of picking study subjects.

B．The incorrect method of flipping a coin.

C．The insufficiency of study statistics.

D．The insensible outcome of the analysis.

【小题4】What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Coin flips are beneficial to making hard choices.

B．When facing a hard decision, choose the status quo.

C．A study justifies making hard choices with randomness.

D．A study offers a strategy for making hard decisions.