Thinking 101 (Woo-kyoung Ahn)

Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better
Woo-kyoung Ahn
Flatiron
Nonfiction, Psychology
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: You know you need to get your holiday shopping done... but somehow it doesn't happen until the last minute. You cheer when your team's star player makes the winning goal, but gloss over the teamwork, successes, and failure that made that one moment so apparently pivotal to victory. You're talking with your partner and suddenly realize that you're not only not on the same page, but hardly even in the same book. You consider yourself an above-average driver... just like the majority of people, which can't possibly be true. What's going on, here?
What's going on is your brain reacting in predictable ways to various situations, using tools that can be useful in some situations - and were useful in our evolution - but which can also work against us, sometimes to terrible results; it's one thing, after all, to be convinced that your lucky socks are why your sports team made it to the championships, but it's quite another to let unconscious biases and assumptions endanger livelihoods and lives, as cultural and racial and political intolerances can do when left unchecked to gain too much societal traction, or what happens when conspiracy theories botch pandemic responses. Learn about those pitfalls and mental traps, how to recognize them at work, and how to best work around them for better thinking and decision-making skills.

REVIEW: This is not the first book I've read addressing the flaws inherent in the human thought processes, the brain being an organ that evolved to facilitate survival rather than perpetuate pure logic, but it's a pretty good one. Ahn cites and explains various studies and anecdotes to make her points, and emphasizes that education alone isn't enough to short-circuit the mental short-circuts in the works. Indeed, sometimes being more educated just gives people more ways to "outthink" or debunk information that doesn't fit their personal beliefs or biases. Still, awareness is an important first step in recognizing when our thinking has become imbalanced and our decisions are compromised, especially when that imbalance and compromise causes harm. Once one is aware, there are tools and tips to help course-correct. Even though this is based off Ahn's popular college course, the language is accessible even to undereducated folk like myself. It's interesting and enjoyable.

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