You may find this ebook useful - https://www.sivv.io/guides/Effective-Communication. It outlines the key takeaways from dozens of books and studies on communication, covering things like crafting an effective message, active listening, non-verbal communication and dealing with difficult questions.
I'm trying to tackle the problem of information overload by providing a service that extracts, summarises and curates the key insights from books, articles and research: https://www.sivv.io/
Happiness or wellbeing are such difficult concepts to measure and compare that I don't think you can ever arrive at a specific, generally-applicable ratio. But that doesn't mean that being aware of loss aversion (and the way it may be shaping your assessment of a decision) isn't helpful in reaching better outcomes.
It does address the potential role of a number of biases, including self-deception / rationalising. As a result it compares responses against third party assessments (finding little evidence of self-deception being a major factor).
I agree that decisions aren't typically binary but I suppose even if you are actively researching after 6 months, for the purposes of this comparison you have remained with the status quo.
Interesting point. I haven't read that but maybe the appropriate approach depends on the situation / level of uncertainty. For example, in situations where we have little clarity on the options or what the outcomes will look like, it perhaps makes sense to resist any urge to take action because we can't make any sensible comparison between the change and the status quo (and 'action bias' may be more of a factor). In other situations, like leaving one job to go to another, we have a better (though definitely imperfect) idea of what the options / outcomes look like and so may be better placed to make a comparison (in which case loss aversion may be more important). This is just a theory though - I may be totally wrong!
Very good point - this study relates to the personal impacts but perhaps not to decisions that impact many people and run counter to what they would individually have decided.
I agree that (like most studies) it could be more robust but what I think is more interesting is the underlying explanation (which, like any theory, may not be correct). Making complex decisions is notoriously challenging - e.g. you are comparing factors across different scales and timeframes (see the book 'Farsighted' by Steven Johnson) - and no single rule should be wholly relied upon, but I think that being aware of the potential impacts of loss aversion / status quo bias during the process can only be helpful.
Frustrated by the problem of information overload, I've been working on Sivv - https://www.sivv.io/ - a forum for sharing summaries of the most useful / actionable ideas from books, long-form articles and research. The idea is to boost the 'signal-to-noise' ratio of the information that people consume, helping them to both reduce the amount of time they spend reading while also learning more.
https://www.sivv.io - I write short summaries outlining useful ideas, advice and wisdom that I come across in the articles and books that I read.
By reading this you can quickly consume useful / actionable information that takes many hours of scanning newspapers, magazines etc each day to source and compile.
At present this covers the following subjects: business, personal / professional development, wellbeing, science & technology, and behavioural science.
Recent posts include: Multi-tasking is better thought of as task-switching, How to reduce the influence of cognitive biases within interviews, Beyond the 'innovator's dilemma'
