Comments (7)

By jamie, March 25, 2010 6:16 am

Good thing Jonah Lehrer is early in his writing career, because I liked this book so much that I want to go out and buy everything he has ever written. (Stay tuned, because I’m sure I will be blogging about Proust Was a Neuroscientist soon.)

The book examines what occurs in our brains when we make decisions. More specifically, it explains the differences between emotional and rational decisions, and details which one is more efficient at any given time. Using recent brain research, Some of the most interesting and, at times poignant findings are from people who have suffered brain damage (such as those who have, or have had, brain tumors) – when the rational and emotional brains cannot work together, or when one does not work at all, it becomes virtually impossible do make certain decisions. For example, without a properly functioning emotional brain, people get stuck trying to make simple decisions (such as what shirt to wear, or what restaurant to eat at) because their rational brain can’t stop examining the pros and cons of each possible choice. Another surprise – the rational brain does not make the best shopping decisions – if you conduct exhaustive research on what car to buy, for example, you will not necessarily choose the best car

One section describes the criminal mind, and how, even though we might think of certain particularly heinous criminals as incapable of reason, some are actually ONLY capable of reason. Another talks about how our unconscious (emotional) mind gathers a wealth of information, and that when we talk of intuition, we are actually referring to the extremely effective functioning of this part of our brain. Lehrer also explains how we can teach our brains to function better in instances when there is not time to think (such as when a quarterback is on the field, or when an airline pilot faces an unusual problem while in the air).

This is not a textbook – it is written for everyone. I initially found this slightly frustrating, because I am used to reading academic books, with complete, easily verifiable citations – Lehrer includes a bibliography, but he doesn’t break up the text with footnotes or endnotes – but ultimately I decided that it makes the book more readable. His language is easily understood (a definite plus, particularly when he explains brain chemistry), and most readers are likely to enjoy his engaging, entertaining style.

There is something for everyone in this book – examples are interesting and varied – coming from everywhere, including the world of sports, aviation, military, firefighting, game shows, grocery stores, and others.

One thing I really liked is that Lehrer encourages personal responsibility in the actions of the general public (in other words, most of us can’t say that our brains made us mess up) – the final chapter of the book includes a list of suggestions about how to make better decisions, and how to examine our past choices to improve future ones. We can all benefit from this!

Scroll down for other posts about How We Decide:

Other posts:
Review
Post 1: Quarterbacks have to take IQ Tests
Post 2: Emotions Control our Brains
Post 3: One Marshmallow or Two?
Post 4: The Cheap Stuff Tastes Better
Post 5: Moral Instincts Are Emotional, Not Rational
Post 6: Political Pundits vs. Dart-Throwing Chimps
Post 7: Want to be a Psychic Poker Player?

Comments (1)

By jamie, March 18, 2010 8:49 pm

Do you watch The Mentalist? That’s my favorite television drama (and not just because Simon Baker is adorable). It’s about a guy who can solve cases by noticing things that others don’t, and by appearing to read people’s minds because he is so adept at understanding how people think. Because of his talents, he is often mistaken for a psychic, although he insists that he is not. I guess you could say that this book teaches how to be just a little bit like the Mentalist, in that it makes us more aware of how and why we make the choices we make so that we can make better choices (and possibly anticipate the choices of others).

The final chapter in the book starts with a discussion of poker – the most talented players must use both reason and emotion in order to consistently excel at the game. Obviously, luck is involved, but there are also a wide array of information available to the poker player that can help improve the chances of winning. Are any of the opponents nervous? If so, could this mean that they are bluffing, or that they have a lousy hand? Are we taking foolish risks because we have lost a few hands and are trying to recoup our losses without regard to the consequences of our choices?

I am possibly the worst poker player ever. Once, during a friendly game with the family, I got both one pair and three of a kind – I tried to make my face look as though I didn’t have any good cards, and then casually asked, “not that I think I have one, but what is a full house (a term I had learned from playing Yahtzee)?” Needless to say, everyone folded. I guess, in my case, I need to learn the rules of the game before I can concentrate on practicing which part of my brain should be in charge of deciding what and when to bet in poker. For some of you, though, this chapter might help improve your game.

The final chapter and the accompanying conclusion also give advice on making shopping and other decisions – when we think we should use reason, we probably should use emotion, and vice versa. Over all, we should try to pay attention to our internal dialogue as we make decisions, and then assess the outcome of our decisions after we make them so we can get better at it.

I finished the book – and I highly recommend it. The review is coming soon.

Scroll down for other posts about How We Decide:

Other posts:
Review
Post 1: Quarterbacks have to take IQ Tests
Post 2: Emotions Control our Brains
Post 3: One Marshmallow or Two?
Post 4: The Cheap Stuff Tastes Better
Post 5: Moral Instincts Are Emotional, Not Rational
Post 6: Political Pundits vs. Dart-Throwing Chimps
Post 7: Want to be a Psychic Poker Player?

Comments (6)

By jamie, March 13, 2010 10:47 pm

Our brains do not like to be stuck in indecision. They also do not like it when we are given information that does not agree with what we already believe.

This chapter describes a study of 284 political pundits, conducted by Philip Tetlock at the University of California at Berkeley. Because pundits analyze the political landscape and then voice their conclusions and predictions, this study asked them for thousands of predictions, analyzing their brain responses as they made their decisions. Then, years later, he checked their prediction ability against actual historical events. The results were fascinating – on average, the study participants correctly predicted future events less than 33 percent of the time, and the more confident and famous the pundits, the worse they did. “In other words, a dart-throwing chimp would have beaten the vast majority of professionals.”

So why was this the case? Because political pundits tend to be overconfident and they can’t stand to hear anything that conflicts with their biased beliefs. Their brains ignore any evidence that runs contrary to what they have already decided, and then they get a rush of happy relief that they have achieved certainty. Tetlock recommends that we ignore the pundits who are so confident that they believe they cannot be wrong.

Chapter 7 does not just discuss pundits – partisan voters (I’m sure many of us fall into this category) are just as bad. Studies have shown that partisan voters (even those who consider themselves to be “highly informed”), when given specific information that candidates on both sides of the political fence have been inconsistent, ignore the facts in most cases, forgive their candidate and heavily criticize the opposing one. “[O]nce the subjects [arrive] at favorable interpretations of the evidence, blithely excusing the contradictions of their chosen candidate, they [activate] the internal reward circuits in their brains and [experience] a rush of pleasurable emotion. Self-delusion, in other words, [feels] really good.”

I have to say that I am not surprised by these study results. I have had discussions with strongly partisan people, and even though I consider them to be intelligent in other cases, they seem so foolish going on and on convincing themselves that they and their party are right when all evidence points to the contrary. Self-delusion might feel good, but it’s pretty ugly to watch.

Scroll down for other posts about How We Decide:

Other posts:
Review
Post 1: Quarterbacks have to take IQ Tests
Post 2: Emotions Control our Brains
Post 3: One Marshmallow or Two?
Post 4: The Cheap Stuff Tastes Better
Post 5: Moral Instincts Are Emotional, Not Rational
Post 6: Political Pundits vs. Dart-Throwing Chimps
Post 7: Want to be a Psychic Poker Player?

Comments (3)

By jamie, March 6, 2010 10:13 pm

Here is a quote from Chapter 6, attributed to G. K. Chesterton, a British writer: “The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.” When I was an undergrad, I took a class on the sociology of murder. I sold back all of my books at the end of the semester, something I rarely do – I had to skim certain parts of the books anyway, and I certainly didn’t want to have them in my library. In fact, I am having a negative visceral reaction just writing about this now, and keep deleting what I think I want to say because I don’t want to remind myself about how calm and matter-of-fact some of the killers sounded in their interviews. Ugh.

Anyway, from a psychological perspective, it seems that psychopaths are actually very rational people – what makes them monsters is that they are incapable of feeling emotion or understanding the emotions of others, nor do they care to do so. All that matters to them is getting what they want, and they seek to please themselves even if it means doing unspeakable things to other people. I guess this means that they cannot ever be rehabilitated, because they are actually incapable of feeling emotion – this sparks a lot of questions about the current justice system, as far as who is capable of standing trial, and how people should be punished when they can’t mentally connect to the damage they have done. It sparks even more questions in the area of religion – If someone truly lacks a conscience, are they Eternally accountable for their crimes? How can we feel sympathy (a normal human reaction) for them when they do unspeakable things to others? Did they make a conscious choice to commit horrible acts, or does their damaged brain truly render them incapable of such?

The chapter discusses moral instincts, and how they are driven by our emotions – we have a visceral feeling when we think something is morally wrong, and then our minds act like lawyers, trying to attach rational explanations to those feelings. I can’t explain how sad I feel thinking that some people do not have this reaction, particularly knowing that some of these people have literally become MONSTERS. I am even sadder for their victims.

Jonah describes in (disturbing) detail animal studies (and even inadvertent human studies in foreign orphanages after a particular country outlawed birth control) that show how extreme parental abuse and neglect can contribute to someone lacking in this area. I can’t write about it too much, and I had to skim some parts just to get through it. Now I have to go read something else to clear my head a bit. So sad.

Scroll down for other posts about How We Decide:

Other posts:
Review
Post 1: Quarterbacks have to take IQ Tests
Post 2: Emotions Control our Brains
Post 3: One Marshmallow or Two?
Post 4: The Cheap Stuff Tastes Better
Post 5: Moral Instincts Are Emotional, Not Rational
Post 6: Political Pundits vs. Dart-Throwing Chimps
Post 7: Want to be a Psychic Poker Player?

Comments (4)

By jamie, March 5, 2010 11:45 pm

I’m talking about wine, which I do not drink, but I know that some wines are extremely expensive and others are quite cheap. University studies have shown that, when given the price before being asked to taste it, a part of the mind is activated that makes the taster believe that the product is better if it costs more. When the price tags are removed, even wine “experts” like the cheap stuff better! Funny, huh? Another study used energy drinks and found that, when participants paid more, they believed that the drink worked better than the identical beverage with a lower price. What, are we all a bunch of snobs? I guess this means we should buy generics whenever we can, since it is usually the SAME PRODUCT! So, here is a question for you Starbucks fans – does the coffee you get there REALLY taste better? Or does it maybe only costs like it should taste better?

The same part of our brain that thinks it is getting a better product if the price is higher can also be fooled into thinking that something works even when it doesn’t, which actually makes it work sort of – I am talking about the placebo effect of course. If we think we are about to take a pain medicine, that part of our brain kicks in before we swallow the pill. Sometimes this is so effective that we can feel better without taking any actual medicine at all.

Chapter 5 is full of fascinating examples of another interesting phenomenon: too many choices can actually cause us to make poor decisions. Studies have been done involving predicting student achievement in college, and even playing the stock market – across the board, less information leads to better decisions, on average. Jonah points out that this is particularly important to know given that many of us do not buy anything without first hitting Google and reading every possible review on a particular item. I am one of those people – I can spend hours researching a product before I am satisfied that my money will be well spent (an exception? – books – I often choose them based on the cover, and I am usually not disappointed).

Then there is the scariest part of the chapter – how many of you have ever suffered back pain? Well, he describes how doctors used to prescribe bed rest, and that patients usually got better in seven weeks or less (I know someone who had to be on bed rest for her back when I was a little kid – she read a lot of books and got better). Well, enter the MRI, where doctors can now see detailed pictures of what our backs look like. Now, instead of bed rest, many doctors diagnose slipped discs and all sorts of serious back problems, and often recommend surgery. The trouble is, some studies have shown that, when shown MRIs of perfectly normal people who are not in pain, doctors tend to diagnose serious problems and recommend surgery! A quote: “medical experts are now encouraging doctors not to order MRIs when evaluating back pain.” Maybe our backs are just bumpy!

So, what are three things we can learn from this chapter, according to me?

1. I can have more time for reading and blogging if I stop researching every single detail (seriously, I have been trying to start this blog for nearly a year, and then I finally told myself “just start writing already!”).
2. We can save a lot of money for organic food if we buy generic everything else.
3. If our back is hurting, maybe we should do more yoga.

Scroll down for other posts about How We Decide:

Other posts:
Review
Post 1: Quarterbacks have to take IQ Tests
Post 2: Emotions Control our Brains
Post 3: One Marshmallow or Two?
Post 4: The Cheap Stuff Tastes Better
Post 5: Moral Instincts Are Emotional, Not Rational
Post 6: Political Pundits vs. Dart-Throwing Chimps
Post 7: Want to be a Psychic Poker Player?