Book Club: December 2018 – Cognitive Biases

We're excited to release our fourth Book Club post (a little late we know, but it's the holidays and you should give us a break). This month, we're looking into works that explore cognitive biases and other strange ticks in human cognition. We hope you find these helpful and interesting.

Book: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

There are many top contenders for books on human cognition and cognitive biases and it's hard to name just one the winner. But this book deserves to be on the short list and the glowing praise it received from everywhere including the New York Times shows it. The chapters cover many different psychological biases and utilize easy to understand anecdotes to help illustrate the points to the everyday reader. While primarily in the context of economics, it also explores issues beyond the market and is an excellent read for anyone interested in learning more about human cognition.

Pick up a copy of the book here.

Article: Rationality: A-Z

Ok, so this technically isn't an article as it is a collection of articles published on Eliezer Yudkowsky's Less Wrong, but it's still an excellent place to get started if you want to learn more about human rationality and irrationality in cognitive science. It is an edited series of blog posts that is available in a variety of forms such as an e-book. The posts are relatively short and each one covers a new topic in a way that really explains what is going on. Just reading the preface will expose the reader to a relatively thorough yet easy to read introduction into various cognitive biases. You'd be hard-pressed to find another collection of blog posts as informative as these ones.

Find the articles here.

Podcast: Daniel Kahneman On Misery, Memory, And Our Understanding Of The Mind

No talk of cognitive biases would be complete without mentioning Daniel Kahneman. He has covered the subject extensively and his book Thinking Fast and Slow is considered to be one of the most influential works in this field of study. This podcast episode is an interview with Kahneman from the NPR show Hidden Brain. Hidden Brain is an excellent podcast series that focuses in on human cognition and many of the episodes have been heavily influenced by Kahneman's work. If you aren't familiar with Kahneman, this podcast is a great place to start.

Find the podcast here.