Whenever you have a surefire idea that you know will work, try this: Think of reasons it won’t. Discussions with other people can sometimes bring us back to earth, but there are also ways to tap multiple perspectives inside ourselves. In realms from dating to business, we’re overconfident and overly optimistic. When our judgment misses the mark, it often means we’ve aimed too high. It’s far from comprehensive, and it focuses more on epistemic matters like avoiding bias than instrumental ones like avoiding procrastination, but if you can master even one implement - and use it regularly - you’ll be ahead of most people. Just what are these elusive circumstances, and where can I get some?Ĭonsider this something like a tool chest for rationality.

Apparently, under the right circumstances, we can pay attention to facts, straighten our slanted beliefs, and make prudent decisions.

I myself have gainfully contributed to the cottage industry of looking smart by saying we’re dumb.Īnd yet somehow, despite such faulty brains, we are a species that has landed on the moon, and that sometimes even manages to get along. The psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky popularized the ideas of biases and heuristics in the 1970s more recently, psychologist Dan Ariely put the spotlight back on the concept of human irrationality with his 2008 book, Predictably Irrational. Photo: Vangelis Aragiannis/Getty Images/iStockphotoīy now, nearly everyone - or at least everyone who’s taken a psychology or business course - is familiar with human foibles like the better-than-average effect (at many tasks, most of us think we’re better than most people) or illusory correlation (we easily read relationships into randomness).

Rationally irrational book