A famous and often quoted study ‘Extraneous factors in judicial decisions‘ shows that judges’ decision-making is greatly influenced by timing, and particularly whether they are hungry: the proportion of parole granted goes down to a flat zero just before lunch.
This tends to be an excellent illustration of the effect of timing of our decision-making abilities.
Using the lunch effect is one of the dirty secrets of facilitating: I often make sure that the hardest decision-making topics are tackled at the end of the morning just before lunch time, just to be able to use the fact that I can postpone lunch until a decision is taken. When participants become hungry they suddenly tend to agree on some decision, letting their fights on the side.
The lunch effect can thus be positive or negative, just know how to use it to your advantage.
