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lvfl's review against another edition
3.0
It was a good introduction to our understanding of decision-making, but his logic had some holes and I wasn't totally sure of his point until the last chapter.
nitin_kishore's review against another edition
4.0
Some of the most important take aways from this book are that people who are rational have found a way to regulate their emotions. They are not absent. That was a misconception I lived with for a while but both parts of yourself are necessary in making decisions. If you let your emotions cloud you, they will look for patterns and lead you towards illogical short term gains without regard for long term price to pay. For easy and quick decisions, be more rational and think it through logically. For difficult ones, assimilate all information, then revisit it later but use your instincts and gut feeling this time. That's how you balance it. With respect to the morality of our mind, one death is a tragedy but a million is a statistic, as said by Stalin. Makes a lot of sense. This was a good read.
lenehall's review against another edition
4.0
In my endless quest to understand why the f*ck people do what they do, I am re-reading this book. Neurobiology has always fascinated me. Human behavior has always perplexed me. Maybe this book (round 2) will shed some kind of light. Maybe not.
davidr's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of the most entertaining "pop-psychology" books that I've read. It is filled with anecdotes and stories that illustrate the main point of the book: the emotional side of our brains makes our decisions for us, and the rational side of our brains helps justify our decisions. Sometimes, depending on our rational thoughts can get in the way of making good decisions, and can actually be a detriment. A good example is the physicist who got interested in playing poker professionally. He understood all of the probabilities very well, and did OK in the poker tournaments--up to a certain point. But he could not progress further, until he learned how the emotional side of his brain was needed in poker. Then he became a world-class poker player.
The book contains some incredible stories about people who are in imminent danger; an airplane pilot faced with the loss of all hydraulic power in his DC10, a group of firefighters trapped by a wildfire advancing toward them at 30 mph. They stopped rationalizing their situations, and started thinking intuitively, in order to survive.
Too much information can impede good judgment. Several psychology studies are described, where a little bit of information leads to a good judgment--say, investing in stocks, or accepting applicants to college--but a lot of information leads to a poor judgment. The reason is that our rational brains are limited by how many pieces of information we can juggle in our minds simultaneously. We find it difficult to consciously sort out which information should be given greater weight in our decisions.
Other stories in the book show how people form a world-concept, and then choose to ignore overwhelming evidence that casts doubt on their concept. Sometimes we use the rational side of our brain to justify our disregard of the evidence.
This book is an easy, fun read; highly recommended.
The book contains some incredible stories about people who are in imminent danger; an airplane pilot faced with the loss of all hydraulic power in his DC10, a group of firefighters trapped by a wildfire advancing toward them at 30 mph. They stopped rationalizing their situations, and started thinking intuitively, in order to survive.
Too much information can impede good judgment. Several psychology studies are described, where a little bit of information leads to a good judgment--say, investing in stocks, or accepting applicants to college--but a lot of information leads to a poor judgment. The reason is that our rational brains are limited by how many pieces of information we can juggle in our minds simultaneously. We find it difficult to consciously sort out which information should be given greater weight in our decisions.
Other stories in the book show how people form a world-concept, and then choose to ignore overwhelming evidence that casts doubt on their concept. Sometimes we use the rational side of our brain to justify our disregard of the evidence.
This book is an easy, fun read; highly recommended.
randyribay's review against another edition
4.0
great neuroscience synthesis for the layman, but i was annoyed that there are neither in-text nor chapter-organized citations.
alijc's review against another edition
2.0
We were, well, undecided about the book. He made interesting points, but a lot of the studies that he cited had already been presented elsewhere, and in a better way. And in his continual stress on the dichotomy between the rational mind and the emotional mind, he might have been overly influenced by Plato. It was a survey, with no real direction, and no final decision.
kristycreads's review against another edition
3.0
Very interesting book that made me think about how I think. However not enough positive examples including women.
loganlangston's review against another edition
4.0
It took me a while to get into. The first 70% of the movie was just okay. it took me a while to get into. Interesting experiments and statistics. I was excited every time he started a paragraph with,"Take a look at this elegant experiment..." It reads like an article (considering Lehrer is a Journalist this make sense) which is perhaps why I had such a hard time getting into it. Scanning stories and aware of itself.
The the last thirty percent really blew me away. It opened my eyes to the beautifully complex human brain with all of it's short comings.
Lehrer does a great job of presenting all of this in an interesting way and bring the stories full circle, by revisiting them often. It gave me a lot to think about and made me hyper aware of my decisions, in a good way. I have found that I am now thinking about my thinking and seeing positive results about it.
I highlighted a ton of the last half of the book, there were just so many interesting facts that I felt could be applied in many different regions of my life, from work to activism.
It's definitely worth a read. I can't wait to check out his new book on creativity. I think I have a minor crush on Jonah Lehrer
The the last thirty percent really blew me away. It opened my eyes to the beautifully complex human brain with all of it's short comings.
Lehrer does a great job of presenting all of this in an interesting way and bring the stories full circle, by revisiting them often. It gave me a lot to think about and made me hyper aware of my decisions, in a good way. I have found that I am now thinking about my thinking and seeing positive results about it.
I highlighted a ton of the last half of the book, there were just so many interesting facts that I felt could be applied in many different regions of my life, from work to activism.
It's definitely worth a read. I can't wait to check out his new book on creativity. I think I have a minor crush on Jonah Lehrer