The 37 rule意思

"The 37% Rule" is a concept from the field of behavioral economics that provides a strategy for making optimal decisions under uncertainty, particularly in situations where there is a trade-off between exploration and exploitation. The rule is often associated with the work of mathematician and economist H.P. Gruber, who studied the problem of how to allocate resources efficiently when there is uncertainty about the value of different options.

The 37% Rule suggests that when evaluating a series of options, you should spend about 37% of your decision-making time or opportunities exploring new options and the remaining time choosing the best option among those encountered so far. This approach is designed to maximize the probability of selecting the best option while also minimizing the time spent searching for it.

Here's a simplified example of how the 37% Rule might be applied:

1. Imagine you are looking for the best apartment to rent in a new city. You expect to see a total of 10 apartments.

2. According to the 37% Rule, you should spend the first 37% of the time (or, in this case, the first 3.7 apartments) exploring and gathering information without committing to any one apartment.

3. After viewing the first 3.7 apartments, you would have a sense of the range of options available. You would then choose the best apartment you've seen so far.

4. The remaining 6.3 apartments (10 - 3.7) would be evaluated only in comparison to the first apartment you decided to commit to. If a better option comes along, you would switch to that one.

The 37% Rule is not a strict mathematical law but rather a heuristic that can be useful in certain decision-making contexts. It's important to note that the actual percentage may need to be adjusted based on the specific circumstances of the decision, and the rule works best when the options are independent and the best option is likely to appear early in the decision-making process.