If your automatic brain is as stupid as mine, you immediately answered $0.10. Since $1.10 +0.10 = $1.20, I think we can all agree that my automatic brain gets an F on this one.
The above question is from the book How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. I just finished this book ten minutes ago and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to think better.
The point Lehrer makes with the above question is that our automatic brains suck at crunching numbers. It's often the simplest of problems and decisions that require just a bit of deliberation to find the right answer or make the right decision.
However, when it comes to complex problems and decisions involving a variety of factors (like picking out a new car), our automatic brains and emotional responses are just what we need to rely on.
For example, Ap Dijksterhuis, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, conducted an experiment in which he presented two sets of car buyers with twelve categories of information about four different types of cars.
Based on the information provided, there was an objectively ideal car choice. The first set of buyers were given as much time as they wanted to contemplate all the information and use their rational mind and deliberative powers to pick the ideal car given the 48 pieces of information on hand. When the results were in, the first set of buyers chose the objectively ideal car less than 25% of the time. This is worse than random chance.
The second set of car buyers were presented with the exact same information, but shortly after reviewing the information, they were presented with a few simple word games and then forced to make a snap decision about what car to buy. This second set of buyers chose the ideal car nearly 60% of the time.
Lehrer's book is full of extremely interesting stories and experiments like the one discussed above. I will be writing a full review of this book in the coming weeks and will post it as soon as it is finished.
No comments:
Post a Comment