How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer was an extremely thought provoking read. Lehrer takes a physiological approach to psychology and the way that our brain makes decisions. In my opinion, he does a through job analyzing the brain and its behavior. However, he also takes it one step further by taking that knowledge and exploring how to use it to our advantage. Lehrer made me think about what I had just read – I thought about how it applied to me, such as past experiences, and how I could apply it in the future as well. His analysis and explanations were greatly helped by his effective use of examples. By picking fascinating but nonetheless relevant anecdotes, Lehrer kept me interested even through the more technical details of the brain. For example, Lehrer draws on a situation in the Gulf War to make a point about our dopamine neurons. Being interested in military history, I read and learned eagerly. I think Lehrer's inclusion of intriguing and effective examples and scenarios contributed a large part to why How We Decide was a worthy read.
While the book was extremely interesting, it was also confusing. Regardless of the useful examples that Lehrer included, it still takes time and careful reading to fully understand what he is trying to tell us. But I do not think this is the author's fault - psychology is a challenging field. Lehrer does a good job of making it as simple as possible for the reader. However, this has its own drawbacks. Lehrer may have oversimplified the facts, which raised lingering questions that he never answered. Normally, I would call this nitpicking, but being a science oriented book, How We Decide should be a tightly written and thoroughly researched book.
Reading through other reviews (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/books/review/Johnson-t.html, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/14/RV2R154OPO.DTL), I saw other people had drawn the same conclusions that I had - both reviews praised Lehrer's book as engaging, citing the vivid examples. The New York Times article, however, pointed out something I did not notice. It says that Lehrer fails to mention truly emotional decisions, such as breaking up a relationship. Personally, I think these decisions like those would be difficult to analyze under the fine microscope that Lehrer used throughout the book.
In the end, as I finished How We Decide, I came away with a fresh understanding of human nature. While I may not feel compelled to follow Lehrer's every piece of advice, it nonetheless gave me a new persepective on how humans make those decisions that they are faced with every single day. Being both interesting and informative, I would heartily recommened How We Decide to anyone who has an interest in how humans function from a psychological standpoint. It was a good read, and I am glad I read it.
Word count: 461
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
The Poker Hand and Coda (done!)
It seems fitting that Lehrer ends his book with a chapter about the balance between listening to our emotions and relying on rationality. Lehrer discusses the World Series of Poker, where players have to rely on both instinct and rational thought. They must consciously think about their decisions in order to win – they can pull on both probability (rational thought) and their gut instincts (emotions). The player that best handles the delicate balance ends up winning the tournament.
I play Texas Hold 'Em myself, so I looked up how to calculate odds (http://www.texasholdem-poker.com/odds) and betting strategy (http://www.texasholdem-poker.com/how_to_bet). Not surprisingly, neither of the pages talk about feelings or rationality.
Lehrer wraps up the chapter with a list of guidelines that he says will help us make better decisions:
The first point also involves the opposite of the statement, which is that we should follow our emotions when it comes to more difficult situations, such as buying a car. This sounds contradictory, and as I have said before I would be hesitant to adopt such a radical approach to life, but Lehrer does make valid point. The second point also involves reason, but I think this point is common sense. People should always think about new situations instead of allowing feelings to guide them.
Regarding the third point, Lehrer has spent the latter half of the book talking about the dangers of certainty and hubris. He proposes a solution to this by saying that we should be our own devil’s advocate. However, honestly, I wonder how we would ever come to a decision if we kept arguing with ourselves. Lehrer does not answer this question.
His fourth point has to do with the paradoxical nature of the human brain. The truth is, we don’t know our own brains that well. Sometimes we gain things through experience that we don’t really know we gained. Patterns and other such things are the strength of our emotional brain, which has been trained through experience.
Before Lehrer brought up these five points, he spent the chapter talking about the fifth point. Up until this point, I had trouble understanding what he meant by thinking about our own thought process. However, when I read this part, it became clearer. Lehrer wants us to think about the decision that we are making at the moment and be aware of what kind of thought process would best suit it. For example, we can avoid loss aversion because we now know that the brain looks at losses differently from gains. Finally, Lehrer ends the chapter by saying that the best decision makers learn from their mistakes, and learn not to make them again. Through these mistakes, we can learn to make better decisions in the future. I feel that this is the most valuable piece of information that I could have taken from How We Decide.
I really like how Lehrer ended the book. He brought it full circle, from where he started the book with a description of a simulated plane flight to the end, where he used a plane’s cockpit to symbolize our emotional and rational brains. In the cockpit, the autopilot is the emotional brain, trained to do their jobs without conscious thought. The pilots are the prefrontal cortex, or the rational brain, and monitor the autopilot in case anything goes wrong. These two systems work together in equilibrium, using each of their advantages to correct their respective mistakes. Lehrer uses this model to demonstrate how our brains should ideally work – with a little self-awareness, we can use each respective part of our brains in the right context.
Last post with review coming up soon!
Word count: 669
I play Texas Hold 'Em myself, so I looked up how to calculate odds (http://www.texasholdem-poker.com/odds) and betting strategy (http://www.texasholdem-poker.com/how_to_bet). Not surprisingly, neither of the pages talk about feelings or rationality.
Lehrer wraps up the chapter with a list of guidelines that he says will help us make better decisions:
- Simple problems require reason
- Novel problems also require reason
- Embrace uncertainty
- You know more than you know
- Think about thinking
The first point also involves the opposite of the statement, which is that we should follow our emotions when it comes to more difficult situations, such as buying a car. This sounds contradictory, and as I have said before I would be hesitant to adopt such a radical approach to life, but Lehrer does make valid point. The second point also involves reason, but I think this point is common sense. People should always think about new situations instead of allowing feelings to guide them.
Regarding the third point, Lehrer has spent the latter half of the book talking about the dangers of certainty and hubris. He proposes a solution to this by saying that we should be our own devil’s advocate. However, honestly, I wonder how we would ever come to a decision if we kept arguing with ourselves. Lehrer does not answer this question.
His fourth point has to do with the paradoxical nature of the human brain. The truth is, we don’t know our own brains that well. Sometimes we gain things through experience that we don’t really know we gained. Patterns and other such things are the strength of our emotional brain, which has been trained through experience.
Before Lehrer brought up these five points, he spent the chapter talking about the fifth point. Up until this point, I had trouble understanding what he meant by thinking about our own thought process. However, when I read this part, it became clearer. Lehrer wants us to think about the decision that we are making at the moment and be aware of what kind of thought process would best suit it. For example, we can avoid loss aversion because we now know that the brain looks at losses differently from gains. Finally, Lehrer ends the chapter by saying that the best decision makers learn from their mistakes, and learn not to make them again. Through these mistakes, we can learn to make better decisions in the future. I feel that this is the most valuable piece of information that I could have taken from How We Decide.
I really like how Lehrer ended the book. He brought it full circle, from where he started the book with a description of a simulated plane flight to the end, where he used a plane’s cockpit to symbolize our emotional and rational brains. In the cockpit, the autopilot is the emotional brain, trained to do their jobs without conscious thought. The pilots are the prefrontal cortex, or the rational brain, and monitor the autopilot in case anything goes wrong. These two systems work together in equilibrium, using each of their advantages to correct their respective mistakes. Lehrer uses this model to demonstrate how our brains should ideally work – with a little self-awareness, we can use each respective part of our brains in the right context.
Last post with review coming up soon!
Word count: 669
The Brain Is an Argument
The Brain Is an Argument talks about the dangers of rationality and how it can lead to hubris. Our brain tends to be rather close minded. Instead of using our rational brains to consider information opposing our beliefs, we use them to rationalize our beliefs even further. For example, when voters with strong party allegiances were shown clearly contradicting statements made by both George Bush and John Kerry (an example for George Bush: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz-6A59qzAU), their brains blatantly ignored the evidence. When asked about the statements, Republican voters said that Kerry’s statements were extremely confusing while Bush’s were okay. Democratic voters responded similarly, lashing out at Bush and supporting Kerry. This is due to our brain’s habit of only taking note of facts that support what we believe. The rest is simply ignored. Our rationality works against us in these cases. Instead of following our feelings, our brains pick out what we want to follow. This cerebral quirk sometimes makes certainty dangerous. We must be able to accept dissonant facts and consider them in an unbiased way.
Lehrer goes on to talk about how our brains work to weave confusing information into plausible stories for us to understand, even when our brains are hopelessly lost. He introduces an experiment on split-brain patients, where two separate, unrelated images are shown to each of the brain’s visual fields. After the patient sees the images, he or she is asked to pick out a picture from a list of provided pictures. The patients ended up picking two pictures corresponding to each of the pictures shown. However, when asked to explain, the patient connects the two images in an absurd way, even when the two images were never meant to be connected.
Reading this chapter made me realize why some of us are so stubborn. We refuse to accept ideas that contradict our beliefs. Those that are open-minded possess the ability to overcome this. A prime example is Abraham Lincoln, who filled his cabinet with diverse and rival politicians. Lincoln was able to assess the different viewpoints, pick out what would be the ideal course of action, and act on it. With this versatile ability, Lincoln was able to become what some would call the most able president of the United States.
Word count: 375
Lehrer goes on to talk about how our brains work to weave confusing information into plausible stories for us to understand, even when our brains are hopelessly lost. He introduces an experiment on split-brain patients, where two separate, unrelated images are shown to each of the brain’s visual fields. After the patient sees the images, he or she is asked to pick out a picture from a list of provided pictures. The patients ended up picking two pictures corresponding to each of the pictures shown. However, when asked to explain, the patient connects the two images in an absurd way, even when the two images were never meant to be connected.
Reading this chapter made me realize why some of us are so stubborn. We refuse to accept ideas that contradict our beliefs. Those that are open-minded possess the ability to overcome this. A prime example is Abraham Lincoln, who filled his cabinet with diverse and rival politicians. Lincoln was able to assess the different viewpoints, pick out what would be the ideal course of action, and act on it. With this versatile ability, Lincoln was able to become what some would call the most able president of the United States.
Word count: 375
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The Moral Mind
As the title implies, Lehrer discusses morality in this chapter. Lehrer uses autism as an example. People with autism struggle to interpret the emotions of others - the fusiform face area of their brain, the part dedicated to recognizing other humans, doesn't work, as well as the mirror-neuron area, which allows us to recognize human emotions on others. Therefore, their sense of morality is that of cold, hard rationalization. Lehrer uses examples like these to convince the reader that morality is hard-wired into our brain, instead of learned.
The most interesting part of this chapter, in my opinion, was the latter part, where Lehrer talks about developing our moral sense. While morality is built into us, our development determines how it manifests when we are older. Child abuse is often a major factor in developing people's sense of morality. We are programmed to sympathize with others, and in helping others, we are able to achieve happiness. However, if children are faced with abuse, their ability to sympathize will be affected. "Cruelty makes us cruel. Abuse makes us abusive. It's a tragic loop," Lehrer says. He talks about an experiment in which monkeys were isolated during the childhood. After they grew, they were exposed to other monkeys. The scientist, Henry Harlow, observed as the monkeys freaked out, unable to deal with social interaction. Harlow then tries another experiment in which two fake mothers, one made out of wire and one made out of cloth, are placed in a baby monkey's cage. He gave a milk bottle to the wire mother. Harlow watched as the monkey stayed curled up inside the cloth while coming out only to get milk for a few minutes. They spend any more time with the wire mother than they needed. Harlow concludes that "If monkeys have taught us anything, it's that you've got to learn how to love before you learn how to live." Awww.
So I guess the moral of the story is that my sense of morality comes from my parents and how they cared for me as a child. Thank you Mom and Dad.
Word count: 336
The most interesting part of this chapter, in my opinion, was the latter part, where Lehrer talks about developing our moral sense. While morality is built into us, our development determines how it manifests when we are older. Child abuse is often a major factor in developing people's sense of morality. We are programmed to sympathize with others, and in helping others, we are able to achieve happiness. However, if children are faced with abuse, their ability to sympathize will be affected. "Cruelty makes us cruel. Abuse makes us abusive. It's a tragic loop," Lehrer says. He talks about an experiment in which monkeys were isolated during the childhood. After they grew, they were exposed to other monkeys. The scientist, Henry Harlow, observed as the monkeys freaked out, unable to deal with social interaction. Harlow then tries another experiment in which two fake mothers, one made out of wire and one made out of cloth, are placed in a baby monkey's cage. He gave a milk bottle to the wire mother. Harlow watched as the monkey stayed curled up inside the cloth while coming out only to get milk for a few minutes. They spend any more time with the wire mother than they needed. Harlow concludes that "If monkeys have taught us anything, it's that you've got to learn how to love before you learn how to live." Awww.
So I guess the moral of the story is that my sense of morality comes from my parents and how they cared for me as a child. Thank you Mom and Dad.
Word count: 336
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Choking on Thought
In this chapter, Jonah Lehrer talks about the dangers of over thinking a situation. He says that there is a certain set point where thinking is no longer advantageous - instead, it is disadvantageous. For example, beginners at golf should consciously think about their swing to practice and improve. However, once their swing has become second nature, golfers should rely on feeling. Actively thinking about their swing could prove disastrous. Turning off our brain's autopilot will cause the golfer to override the brain's feelings, which have been honed and tuned through practice. It is therefore possible to thinking too much. Being a baseball, tennis, and golf player, I know this downfall all too well. Thinking about your swing is often the reason that you mess up your swing.
In addition, it is rather ironic that I should read this particular chapter this week. This past Saturday, I had a piano recital. I was playing near the end of the program, so I had no shortage of time to think about the piece that I had to play. However, I over thought, and as Lehrer puts it, "choked on thought." As I played, I began thinking about what comes next instead of relying on my brain's feelings as I normally did when practicing. When I was practicing, I could usually play through the piece without many mistakes. However, while performing, I got nervous and I thought too much, which ultimately led to me making many mistakes. Thankfully, my piano teacher understood. Now that I have learned the reason that this happens, hopefully I can avoid it next time.
Lehrer also discusses the other downsides to thinking too much. When people are faced with a visual choice (such as two paintings to pick from), they usually go with the choice that "feels right." However, when pondering the choice, people tend to over think. They change their minds because they are unable to rationalize their initial choice other than "it feels right." This could be dangerous. "Self analysis results in less self awareness," Lehrer says.
I kept this in mind this past week when picking senior portraits. I had narrowed down the choices to two, so I asked my friends what they thought. However, I took care not to ask them why they liked the picture, but only which one they liked. Hopefully this approach was effective in picking the better looking picture.
Lehrer spends the rest of the chapter talking about how the rational brain is sometimes confronted with too much information. This causes our brains to start considering irrelevant information, which is known as the anchoring effect. For example, when a new car is seen, there is usually a high sticker price printed on it that was never meant to be paid. However, when the salesperson gives the customer an inevitable price cut, the customer's prefrontal cortex automatically interprets it as a bargain.
Now that I know, when it is time for me to buy a car, the only thing I have to do is figure out how to get a discount on a "discount."
Essentially, this chapter is trying to prove that emotions are better at assessing actual preferences, as opposed to rational thought. We should listen to our feelings when looking at choices. However, I am still hesitant to adopt such a different approach to life. As much evidence that Lehrer puts forth, I am still somewhat convinced that rational thought helps in decisions.
Word count: 564
In addition, it is rather ironic that I should read this particular chapter this week. This past Saturday, I had a piano recital. I was playing near the end of the program, so I had no shortage of time to think about the piece that I had to play. However, I over thought, and as Lehrer puts it, "choked on thought." As I played, I began thinking about what comes next instead of relying on my brain's feelings as I normally did when practicing. When I was practicing, I could usually play through the piece without many mistakes. However, while performing, I got nervous and I thought too much, which ultimately led to me making many mistakes. Thankfully, my piano teacher understood. Now that I have learned the reason that this happens, hopefully I can avoid it next time.
Lehrer also discusses the other downsides to thinking too much. When people are faced with a visual choice (such as two paintings to pick from), they usually go with the choice that "feels right." However, when pondering the choice, people tend to over think. They change their minds because they are unable to rationalize their initial choice other than "it feels right." This could be dangerous. "Self analysis results in less self awareness," Lehrer says.
I kept this in mind this past week when picking senior portraits. I had narrowed down the choices to two, so I asked my friends what they thought. However, I took care not to ask them why they liked the picture, but only which one they liked. Hopefully this approach was effective in picking the better looking picture.
Lehrer spends the rest of the chapter talking about how the rational brain is sometimes confronted with too much information. This causes our brains to start considering irrelevant information, which is known as the anchoring effect. For example, when a new car is seen, there is usually a high sticker price printed on it that was never meant to be paid. However, when the salesperson gives the customer an inevitable price cut, the customer's prefrontal cortex automatically interprets it as a bargain.
Now that I know, when it is time for me to buy a car, the only thing I have to do is figure out how to get a discount on a "discount."
Essentially, this chapter is trying to prove that emotions are better at assessing actual preferences, as opposed to rational thought. We should listen to our feelings when looking at choices. However, I am still hesitant to adopt such a different approach to life. As much evidence that Lehrer puts forth, I am still somewhat convinced that rational thought helps in decisions.
Word count: 564
Saturday, May 9, 2009
The Uses of Reason
Honestly, when I was reading this chapter, I didn't feel as drawn in as I did when I was reading previous chapters. I'm not sure why, I just wasn't as interested.
Anyway, Lehrer dedicates this chapter to a discussion of the human prefrontal cortex, the rational part of the human brain. The prefrontal cortex essentially controls our emotions and prevents us from succumbing to our most immediate urges. This part of the brain allows us to regulate our emotions by allowing us to think about them, an ability that psychologists call metacognition. The prefrontal cortex lets us reject the first impression, as demonstrated in the Stroop test. The prefrontal cortex tells us to ignore the obvious answer, the word, and allows us to identify the color in the text. I tried doing the test and it really was difficult to name the text color. It took me a while to work my way down the whole image.
Our prefrontal cortex also enables us solve problems. In my opinion, this explanation was the most interesting part of the chapter. Our prefrontal cortex has a working memory. As our brain reacts to a stimulus, neurons in the brain fire. However, even as the stimulus is removed, the neurons continue firing for a short period of time, usually a couple of seconds, leaving an echo in the prefrontal cortex's working memory. As the next stimulus comes in, the neural signals overlap in the working memory, allowing new associations to form. This explains our "aha!" moments. Once these new associations are formed with the brain, we realize that these could be the solutions to our problems.
I thought the bit about how the prefrontal cortex was illuminating. It explained how we problem solve, as well as demonstrated the rational powers of the prefrontal cortex.
I hope the next chapters are a little more interesting than this one. I'm not saying that this wasn't interesting, I just didn't feel like it was up to par with the previous chapters that I read.
Word count: 333
Anyway, Lehrer dedicates this chapter to a discussion of the human prefrontal cortex, the rational part of the human brain. The prefrontal cortex essentially controls our emotions and prevents us from succumbing to our most immediate urges. This part of the brain allows us to regulate our emotions by allowing us to think about them, an ability that psychologists call metacognition. The prefrontal cortex lets us reject the first impression, as demonstrated in the Stroop test. The prefrontal cortex tells us to ignore the obvious answer, the word, and allows us to identify the color in the text. I tried doing the test and it really was difficult to name the text color. It took me a while to work my way down the whole image.
Our prefrontal cortex also enables us solve problems. In my opinion, this explanation was the most interesting part of the chapter. Our prefrontal cortex has a working memory. As our brain reacts to a stimulus, neurons in the brain fire. However, even as the stimulus is removed, the neurons continue firing for a short period of time, usually a couple of seconds, leaving an echo in the prefrontal cortex's working memory. As the next stimulus comes in, the neural signals overlap in the working memory, allowing new associations to form. This explains our "aha!" moments. Once these new associations are formed with the brain, we realize that these could be the solutions to our problems.
I thought the bit about how the prefrontal cortex was illuminating. It explained how we problem solve, as well as demonstrated the rational powers of the prefrontal cortex.
I hope the next chapters are a little more interesting than this one. I'm not saying that this wasn't interesting, I just didn't feel like it was up to par with the previous chapters that I read.
Word count: 333
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Fooled by a Feeling
Before I get into how interesting this chapter was, there were two things that bothered me.
In Fooled by a Feeling, Lehrer says the stock market is completely random and impossible to predict. Uhh... no it isn't? The stock market is prone to sudden rises and dips, yes, but it definitely is not impossible to predict. For example, say Ford announces a new car utilizing the world's newest clean energy source. This new form of energy is groundbreaking, and is obviously more efficient and cleaner than gas. Needless to say, Ford's stock value will shoot through the roof. I do not agree with Lehrer's claim that the stock market is impossible to anticipate. Through careful research, stock brokers are able to predict the rises and falls of certain stocks. Tada. Proof that predicting stocks is possible.
Secondly, Lehrer mentions an experiment involving humans with intact emotional brains and humans without them. The two groups are given a certain amount of money and tasked to either play it safe by investing nothing, or make a bet and bet $1 in hopes of getting $2.50 in return. If a subject chooses to take the bet, a coin is flipped. If the coin lands on heads, the subject loses the dollar. But if the coin lands on tails, the subject gains $2.50. The experiment was supposed to show that people with emotions make irrational decisions - statistically, the subject would have a mere 13% chance that he or she would have less than $20, which is what the subject would have had if he or she didn't bet. But wait... Doesn't this experiment require the subject to make a decision? Didn't Lehrer just spend the whole first chapter convincing us that people without emotions couldn't make decisions?
That doesn't make sense...
But anyway, the rest of the chapter was an intriguing read as usual. In the chapter, Lehrer talks about loss aversion. He proposes two scenarios. Both scenarios involve the outbreak of a lethal virus in the United States (swine flu!?!) and include two possible programs to be put into effect. The disease has the potential of killing 600 people. The first scenario has Program A saving 200 people. Program B has a 33.3% chance of saving 600 people, and a 66.6% chance of saving nobody. I instinctively went with Program A, and so did 72% of people asked. In the second scenario, Program A will kill 400 people, while program B will have a 33.3% chance that no one will die and a 66.6% chance that 600 people will die. I went with Program B this time (like 78% of other people) before I realized that both scenarios were exactly the same thing. Our brains are automatically inclined to avoid losses - hence the name of loss aversion. The clear-cut example that Lehrer used struck me as extremely revealing of the human brain's workings - I am learning so much about how the brain ticks. Interested, I looked up more about loss aversion.
Another aspect of the brain that Lehrer mentioned was the human tendency to favor immediate reward, even though a gain at a later time would yield more. This explains why credit card debt is so common, as well as explains the economic deficit we are currently in (Lehrer did not specifically mention the current economic slump, but he did mention subprime mortages, which was the cause). The brain sees immediate gain, such as a pair of shoes on sale or a mortgage with a low initial rent, and ignores the later costs, like the high interest rates on credit cards and the ridiculous price hikes after two years on subprime mortgages. All in all, the chapter taught me to carefully consider my financial decisions and not to jump to conclusions based on my brain's tendency to want immediate reward. Life lesson #2 from How We Decide. Nice.
While some parts of this chapter did bother me slightly, it was still as interesting and as enlightening as ever.
Word count: 662
In Fooled by a Feeling, Lehrer says the stock market is completely random and impossible to predict. Uhh... no it isn't? The stock market is prone to sudden rises and dips, yes, but it definitely is not impossible to predict. For example, say Ford announces a new car utilizing the world's newest clean energy source. This new form of energy is groundbreaking, and is obviously more efficient and cleaner than gas. Needless to say, Ford's stock value will shoot through the roof. I do not agree with Lehrer's claim that the stock market is impossible to anticipate. Through careful research, stock brokers are able to predict the rises and falls of certain stocks. Tada. Proof that predicting stocks is possible.
Secondly, Lehrer mentions an experiment involving humans with intact emotional brains and humans without them. The two groups are given a certain amount of money and tasked to either play it safe by investing nothing, or make a bet and bet $1 in hopes of getting $2.50 in return. If a subject chooses to take the bet, a coin is flipped. If the coin lands on heads, the subject loses the dollar. But if the coin lands on tails, the subject gains $2.50. The experiment was supposed to show that people with emotions make irrational decisions - statistically, the subject would have a mere 13% chance that he or she would have less than $20, which is what the subject would have had if he or she didn't bet. But wait... Doesn't this experiment require the subject to make a decision? Didn't Lehrer just spend the whole first chapter convincing us that people without emotions couldn't make decisions?
That doesn't make sense...
But anyway, the rest of the chapter was an intriguing read as usual. In the chapter, Lehrer talks about loss aversion. He proposes two scenarios. Both scenarios involve the outbreak of a lethal virus in the United States (swine flu!?!) and include two possible programs to be put into effect. The disease has the potential of killing 600 people. The first scenario has Program A saving 200 people. Program B has a 33.3% chance of saving 600 people, and a 66.6% chance of saving nobody. I instinctively went with Program A, and so did 72% of people asked. In the second scenario, Program A will kill 400 people, while program B will have a 33.3% chance that no one will die and a 66.6% chance that 600 people will die. I went with Program B this time (like 78% of other people) before I realized that both scenarios were exactly the same thing. Our brains are automatically inclined to avoid losses - hence the name of loss aversion. The clear-cut example that Lehrer used struck me as extremely revealing of the human brain's workings - I am learning so much about how the brain ticks. Interested, I looked up more about loss aversion.
Another aspect of the brain that Lehrer mentioned was the human tendency to favor immediate reward, even though a gain at a later time would yield more. This explains why credit card debt is so common, as well as explains the economic deficit we are currently in (Lehrer did not specifically mention the current economic slump, but he did mention subprime mortages, which was the cause). The brain sees immediate gain, such as a pair of shoes on sale or a mortgage with a low initial rent, and ignores the later costs, like the high interest rates on credit cards and the ridiculous price hikes after two years on subprime mortgages. All in all, the chapter taught me to carefully consider my financial decisions and not to jump to conclusions based on my brain's tendency to want immediate reward. Life lesson #2 from How We Decide. Nice.
While some parts of this chapter did bother me slightly, it was still as interesting and as enlightening as ever.
Word count: 662
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