I have been fascinated by how people think since I was a teenager reading books about the mysteries of human psychology, Zen Buddhism, and how computers work. The wonders of cognition appear in countless guises. As a teenager, I was intrigued by the mind’s ability to “go meta,” to step back and gain awareness of itself. More recently, I have been struck by how individuals are able to share goals, intentions, and activities with others, to be cognitive team players. So many books these days are about neuroscience, but if you want to understand the mind, it is just as important to understand its social and cultural context, so I decided to choose books about the social and cultural environment surrounding how we make decisions.
By Steven Sloman, Philip Fernbach
The human mind is astounding, but in fact, people know less than they think. Most of us don’t even know how ballpoint pens work, never mind complex things like political policies. This doesn’t stop us from having opinions. Just try explaining a policy that you feel strongly about in detail to someone else. How would it actually work? How exactly would it lead to consequences for society? It’s not surprising that we know so little; most things are infinitely complex because they are connected to everything else. That’s why we rely on others for our understanding. Knowledge isn’t in individual brains; it is distributed across communities. We have strong opinions because we live in communities that endorse our opinions, sometimes because the community knows a lot and sometimes because it just thinks it does.
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By Douglas R. Hofstadter
This book introduced me as a teenager (long ago) to the questions that I have pursued over the course of my career. What is special about the human mind? How can we begin to think about issues like understanding and awareness? How can we begin to do research that might, in the long run, shed some light on the answers to these questions?
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By Annie Duke
This clever little book is a highly digestible introduction to some of the key ideas that psychologists have had about how humans make judgments and decisions, when people do well, and when we are prone to error. The ideas are engaged in the author’s domain of expertise, through a game that everyone can relate to: poker. The book shows how learning to be a better poker player is a microcosm of learning how to be a more effective decision maker so you can achieve your own goals, whatever they are.
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By Barry Schwartz
One obstacle to being a happy decision-maker in modern Western society is that we are constantly being told that more is better, having more choices means we are more likely to find the perfect option. But what if there is no perfect option? And what if choice itself makes us unhappy? Maybe we should spend less time making decisions and more time enjoying ourselves.
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By Robert B. Cialdini
This is a best-selling book for a good reason: It lists the top ways to persuade other people. Method number one: Persuade people to believe X by informing them that others believe X. Oh, how we like to conform.
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By Kurt Andersen
This book offers an insightful exploration of why Americans make the decisions they do, as individuals and as a society. It makes a compelling case that Americans are distinct in our flightiness, our failure to perceive and live in reality. This explains both the allure and promise of America, as well as much of its weirdness and its failures.
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