[verteu]

You should quit. There's a randomized controlled experiment on this exact topic. See column 6 in page 28 of https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w22487/w224...

On average, people who flip a coin to decide whether to quit are much happier when they quit.

To be precise, if we define H as self-scored-1-to-10 happiness six months after the coin toss, then B_wald = (EV[H | heads] - EV[H | tails]) / (Pr[quit | heads] - Pr[quit | tails]) = 5.203.

[shoo]

Conclusion of the linked paper:

> The results of this paper suggest the presence of a substantial bias against making changes when it comes to important life decisions, as evidenced by that fact that those who do make a change report being no worse off after two months and much better off six months later. The results of this paper are, of course, merely suggestive. If the results are correct, then admonitions such as "winners never quit and quitters never win," while well-meaning, may actually be extremely poor advice.

[Centigonal]

This is a fascinating paper, and IMO you should submit it as its own link so more people can read and discuss it.

[mi_lk]

some entries in the same column:

  should I quit my job -> 5.203
  should I start my own business -> 5.256
  should I propose -> -5.125

[dan-robertson]

I’m not sure I understand what I’m looking at but I think my reading is that if people are unsure about quitting their jobs they probably just need a bit of kick out of status-quo bias, but if people are unsure about whether or not they should propose, they should probably find something they are more sure about instead of letting a coin decide. It doesn’t sound totally unintuitive to me. I guess I think of people thinking about quitting as being biased towards the status quo and I think of people who propose as being indecisive about the timing/method but having reasonable conviction about wanting to do it, so I guess that the people having reservations and being indecisive have genuine reservations?

Also, based on the GP’s formula, maybe the effects look large because people don’t do what the coin tells them very often so you are dividing by a small number?

[verteu]

My interpretation is "If you're unsure enough to flip a coin, then... 1) Being forced to quit your job would make you 5.203 out of 10 points happier(!) 2) Being forced to start your own business would make you 5.203 out of 10 points happier(!) 3) Being forced to propose would make you 5.125 out of 10 points LESS happy(!)"

The size of the effect is much larger than I'd expect.

> Also, based on the GP’s formula, maybe the effects look large because people don’t do what the coin tells them very often so you are dividing by a small number?

I don't think so. The same "small number" exists implicitly in the numerator, since (EV[H | heads] - EV[H | tails]) = 0 for anyone ignoring the coin.

For example, imagine quitting really does make you 5 points happier, but a random 99% of people ignore the coin, and 1% follow it.

The numerator would be (EV[H | heads] - EV[H | tails]) = 0.99*0 + 0.01*5, since happiness is unaffected by coin toss for people ignoring the coin. The denominator would be 0.01, so we'd get B_wald=5 as desired.