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Thinking 101 By Woo-Kyoung Ahn: Book Review

19 December 22

Thinking 101, the pathbreaking psychology book by professor Woo-Kyoung Ahn. At Yale University, Woo-Kyoung Ahn holds the title John Hay Whitney Professor of Psychology. She worked as an assistant professor at Yale University and an associate professor at Vanderbilt University following her graduation with a doctorate in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She won Yale's Lex Hixon Prize for outstanding social science instruction in 2022. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, and the National Institutes of Health has financed her study on cognitive biases.

Following are 3 essential takeaways from Woo-latest Kyoung's book, Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better.

1. We can make mistakes in judgment even when we mean well

Let's begin with a mistake known as confirmation bias. It is the propensity to support existing beliefs. Imagine someone who takes echinacea for sore throats believing it to be a typical cold remedy. He or she typically feels better in two to three days. It appears reasonable for him to continue believing that echinacea treats the common cold because the information he has acquired strongly supports it.

What would happen if he does not take echinacea the next time he gets a sore throat is a crucial piece of information that is absent, though. If he continues to feel better in a few days, echinacea is probably not the cause of his recovery. Therefore, if this person never investigates what would occur if he stopped taking echinacea, he is engaging in confirmation bias.

That is precisely how the unethical practice of bloodletting endured for 2,000 years in western society. Every time someone became ill, the healers poured out their anger in an attempt to heal them. The majority of patients improved, but they didn't experiment to see what would happen without bleeding. Confirmation bias can occur even when good intentions are present.

The planning fallacy is yet another mistake in reasoning. It occurs when we don't account for the time, money, and effort needed to do a task. Almost everyone is accountable for this. There are instances of very amazing planning errors. The Big Dig highway building project in Boston took ten years longer than anticipated and went 19 billion dollars over budget. A scaled-down version of the Sydney Opera House was originally planned to cost $7 million, but it ultimately cost $102 million and took ten years longer to build than anticipated.

The planning fallacy is notable for occurring even when it would be in our best interests to produce the most accurate estimate. It is obviously highly stressful to miss deadlines and budget targets, and nobody likes to spend more time and money than necessary as a result of bad preparation.

2. The by-products of adaptive cognitive processes include thinking mistakes

Starting with an analogy, We have an innate desire for high-calorie foods, which is beneficial for survival when there are few resources available. The same urge to consume high-calorie foods, meanwhile, can lead to weight gain. Our cognitive systems are developed to find solutions to challenges that aid in survival, but the same mechanism backfires in other situations, which causes many thinking blunders.

Let's discuss the concept of metacognition as an example. Knowing whether you are knowledgeable about something, like whether you can swim, is what this is. You can perform a mental simulation of swimming even if you haven't gone swimming in years. You can swim if it flows smoothly in your thoughts. Metacognition is crucial for life because it stops us from trying to accomplish things we are incapable of doing, like flying. Things that seem simple to us mentally are typically simple to perform.

Fluency can be used for metacognition, although doing so can lead to the planning fallacy. We plan by doing a task in our imaginations, which usually goes more smoothly in our heads than it would in reality. Consider making a list of the people you want to buy gifts for as you prepare your Christmas shopping. The work feels like it will go smoothly once you have a list of the recipients and gifts. You only need to buy presents, but because of this, you don't account for the time required to finish the job. Ironically, research has shown that people tend to underestimate the completion time, even more, the more explicit and detailed a plan is.

Confirmation bias is just another illustration of how adaptive cognitive systems produce thinking errors. Let's say you visit a grocery store two kilometers from your home and discover that the apples are good. To prevent confirmation bias, you might try a different supermarket the next time you need apples, but you might as well return to the first one where the apples were good. It's a form of confirmation bias, but it's more effective and less dangerous. It is preferable to stick with what you know than to explore unknown possibilities when the goal is to get by with things that are adequate. Confirmation bias results from our need to conserve energy and reduce danger.

3. Common mistakes in reasoning can have devastating repercussions

Let's begin with a positive illustration of my personal confirmation bias. My four-year-old kid once questioned me as to why a yellow traffic light is referred to as a yellow light. I explained to him slowly that the reason it was named a yellow light was that it was yellow. He then informed me that it was orange. I told my son, no way, while I pondered whether my husband failed to inform me that he was color blind. I rechecked it and saw that it was orange since he insisted on it. I had been picturing it as yellow up until that moment because that is what everyone had been calling it. Take an unbiased look at the traffic signal yourself the next time you encounter one.

As long as I am getting ready to stop, seeing a yellow light as orange doesn't harm anyone. We constantly interpret the world in light of our prior knowledge. Without that, we are unable to understand it. However, this adaptive cognitive function also contributes to the persistence of prejudice and stereotypes in society.

Researchers looked at the gender pay difference in one study. Participants were distinguished university science academics who were asked to evaluate a potential laboratory management candidate. The same resume was sent to each professor in this study, with the exception that John's name appeared on half of them and Jennifer's name on the other half. Despite the fact that Jennifer and John both had the same credentials, John was assessed as being much more competent and employable. As a result, John received an average income that was $3,500 or 13% greater than Jennifer's.

Such bias is especially harmful due to a vicious loop. Because of confirmation bias, these academics will continue to think that men are superior to women in science if John is appointed and likely does well in his position. Prejudice based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other factor might have a similar effect.

The framing effect is another illustration of how thinking mistakes can have very detrimental effects. People are influenced by the way options are presented. For example, ground beef that is 85% lean tastes better, is healthier, and has less fat than beef that is 15% pure fat. Furthermore, the framing impact may decide life or death. In one study, a sizable majority of lung cancer patients decided to have surgery after being informed that they would have a 90% survival rate if they did so. However, just 50% of patients in a different group decided to have surgery after being informed that there was a 10% possibility they would pass away from the procedure.

I urge everyone to spend some time studying cognitive biases, discussing how we may improve, and not striving for perfection when being good enough is OK.

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Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better Hardcover – Sept. 13 2022

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“An INVALUABLE RESOURCE to anyone who wants to think better.” ―Gretchen Rubin Award-winning YALE PROFESSOR Woo-kyoung Ahn delivers “A MUST-READ ― a smart and compellingly readable guide to cutting-edge research into how people think.” (Paul Bloom) “A FUN exploration.” ― Dax Shepard Psychologist Woo-kyoung Ahn devised a course at Yale called “Thinking” to help students examine the biases that cause so many problems in their daily lives. It quickly became one of the university’s most popular courses. Now, for the first time, Ahn presents key insights from her years of teaching and research in a book for everyone. She shows how “thinking problems” stand behind a wide range of challenges, from common, self-inflicted daily aggravations to our most pressing societal issues and inequities. Throughout, Ahn draws on decades of research from other cognitive psychologists, as well as from her own groundbreaking studies. And she presents it all in a compellingly readable style that uses fun examples from pop culture, anecdotes from her own life, and illuminating stories from history and the headlines. Thinking 101 is a book that goes far beyond other books on thinking, showing how we can improve not just our own daily lives through better awareness of our biases but also the lives of everyone around us. It is, quite simply, required reading for everyone who wants to think―and live―better.

• Print length 288 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Flatiron Books
• Publication date Sept. 13 2022
• Dimensions 14.48 x 2.92 x 21.84 cm
• ISBN-10 1250805953
• ISBN-13 978-1250805959
• See all details

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Product description

BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST'S NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022 Praise for Thinking 101 “This book is not just a lucid overview of the cognitive traps that wreak havoc on your reasoning―it’s also an expert's guide to rethinking how we think.” ―Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again "Thinking 101 combines the best science with practical advice to help you make better decisions. Ahn’s stories are spot-on, they are humorous, and they show us how thinking can be turned on itself to overcome the biases from, well, thinking!" ―Mahzarin Banaji, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University and co-author of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People "Every day of our lives, we make judgments―and we don’t always do a very good job of it. Thinking 101 is an invaluable resource to anyone who wants to think better. In remarkably clear language, and with engaging and often funny examples, Woo-Kyoung Ahn uses cutting-edge research to explain the mistakes we often make―and how to avoid them.” ―Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies " Thinking 101 delivers a world-class tune-up for your brain. It will unclog your mental gears, restart your cognitive engine, and put you on the road to making smarter decisions.” ―Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, Drive , and A Whole New Mind “There are other books on typical errors and biases of thinking. But Ahn’s is remarkable. Not only does she limit her coverage to just eight major such thinking problems, which allows her to deeply inform the reader about each with engaging, conversational prose, she also offers compelling, research-based ways to limit the problems’ unwanted impact. The result is a terrific one-two punch.” ―Robert Cialdini, author of Influence and Pre-Suasion "Thinking 101 i s a must-read―a smart and compellingly readable guide to cutting-edge research into how people think. Building from her popular Yale course, Professor Woo-kyoung Ahn shows how a better understanding of how our minds work can help us become smarter and wiser―and even kinder." ―Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto, Brooks and Suzanne Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University, and the author of The Sweet Spot "Ahn’s book is an absorbing, timely― and I think essential ― guide to how our minds go wrong and what we can do to think better. With lots of humorous stories and cautionary thinking tales, this terrifically-written book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand and overcome the powerful yet invisible thinking traps that lead us astray." ―Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology at Yale University and host of The Happiness Lab podcast "Woo-kyoung Ahn uses wonderfully engaging examples to show how we can understand and improve our reasoning." ―Anna Rosling Rönnlund, co-author of Factfulness " Thinking 101 breaks down when human thinking breaks down and unlike many other books on the topic, this one is accessible, engaging, and fun to read. Woo-kyoung Ahn's delightful sense of humor shines through, as she uses entertaining stories and examples to compellingly illustrate why thinking errors happen, why it matters, and what to do about it. The book is full of research-backed insights into how the mind works that newcomers to the field will find clear and understandable, but also has a number of gems that more advanced readers will appreciate." ―Danny Oppenheimer, Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and author of Democracy Despite Itself " Thinking 101 provides evidence-based advice that has real potential to improve lives." ― Science “Ahn excels at illustrating how psychological concepts manifest in everyday life, and her suggestions provide sensible techniques readers can use to push back against cognitive biases. This heady volume provides plenty of food for thought.” ―Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Flatiron Books (Sept. 13 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250805953
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250805959
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 363 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.48 x 2.92 x 21.84 cm
• #236 in Cognitive Psychology Books
• #353 in Cognitive Science
• #354 in Cognitive Psychology in Professional Science

About the author

Woo-kyoung ahn.

WOO-KYOUNG AHN is the John Hay Whitney Professor of Psychology at Yale University. After receiving her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, she was assistant professor at Yale University and associate professor at Vanderbilt University. In 2022, she received Yale’s Lex Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences. Her research on thinking biases has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, and she is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science.

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Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better

Description.

“An INVALUABLE RESOURCE to anyone who wants to think better.” —Gretchen Rubin

Award-winning YALE PROFESSOR Woo-kyoung Ahn delivers “A MUST-READ — a smart and compellingly readable guide to cutting-edge research into how people think.” (Paul Bloom)

“A FUN exploration.” — Dax Shepard

Psychologist Woo-kyoung Ahn devised a course at Yale called “Thinking” to help students examine the biases that cause so many problems in their daily lives. It quickly became one of the university’s most popular courses. Now, for the first time, Ahn presents key insights from her years of teaching and research in a book for everyone.

She shows how “thinking problems” stand behind a wide range of challenges, from common, self-inflicted daily aggravations to our most pressing societal issues and inequities. Throughout, Ahn draws on decades of research from other cognitive psychologists, as well as from her own groundbreaking studies. And she presents it all in a compellingly readable style that uses fun examples from pop culture, anecdotes from her own life, and illuminating stories from history and the headlines.

Thinking 101 is a book that goes far beyond other books on thinking, showing how we can improve not just our own daily lives through better awareness of our biases but also the lives of everyone around us. It is, quite simply, required reading for everyone who wants to think—and live—better.

About the Author

WOO-KYOUNG AHN is the John Hay Whitney Professor of Psychology at Yale University. After receiving her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, she was assistant professor at Yale University and associate professor at Vanderbilt University. In 2022, she received Yale's Lex Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences. Her research on thinking biases has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, and she is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. Thinking 101 is her first book.

Praise for Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better

BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST'S NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022

Praise for Thinking 101

“This book is not just a lucid overview of the cognitive traps that wreak havoc on your reasoning—it’s also an expert's guide to rethinking how we think.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again

"Thinking 101 combines the best science with practical advice to help you make better decisions. Ahn’s stories are spot-on, they are humorous, and they show us how thinking can be turned on itself to overcome the biases from, well, thinking!" —Mahzarin Banaji, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University and co-author of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People

"Every day of our lives, we make judgments—and we don’t always do a very good job of it. Thinking 101 is an invaluable resource to anyone who wants to think better. In remarkably clear language, and with engaging and often funny examples, Woo-Kyoung Ahn uses cutting-edge research to explain the mistakes we often make—and how to avoid them.” —Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies

" Thinking 101 delivers a world-class tune-up for your brain. It will unclog your mental gears, restart your cognitive engine, and put you on the road to making smarter decisions.” —Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, Drive , and A Whole New Mind

“There are other books on typical errors and biases of thinking. But Ahn’s is remarkable. Not only does she limit her coverage to just eight major such thinking problems, which allows her to deeply inform the reader about each with engaging, conversational prose, she also offers compelling, research-based ways to limit the problems’ unwanted impact. The result is a terrific one-two punch.” —Robert Cialdini, author of Influence and Pre-Suasion

"Thinking 101 i s a must-read—a smart and compellingly readable guide to cutting-edge research into how people think. Building from her popular Yale course, Professor Woo-kyoung Ahn shows how a better understanding of how our minds work can help us become smarter and wiser—and even kinder." —Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto, Brooks and Suzanne Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University, and the author of The Sweet Spot

"Ahn’s book is an absorbing, timely— and I think essential — guide to how our minds go wrong and what we can do to think better. With lots of humorous stories and cautionary thinking tales, this terrifically-written book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand and overcome the powerful yet invisible thinking traps that lead us astray." —Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology at Yale University and host of The Happiness Lab podcast

"Woo-kyoung Ahn uses wonderfully engaging examples to show how we can understand and improve our reasoning." —Anna Rosling Rönnlund, co-author of Factfulness

" Thinking 101 breaks down when human thinking breaks down and unlike many other books on the topic, this one is accessible, engaging, and fun to read. Woo-kyoung Ahn's delightful sense of humor shines through, as she uses entertaining stories and examples to compellingly illustrate why thinking errors happen, why it matters, and what to do about it. The book is full of research-backed insights into how the mind works that newcomers to the field will find clear and understandable, but also has a number of gems that more advanced readers will appreciate." —Danny Oppenheimer, Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and author of Democracy Despite Itself

" Thinking 101 provides evidence-based advice that has real potential to improve lives." — Science

“Ahn excels at illustrating how psychological concepts manifest in everyday life, and her suggestions provide sensible techniques readers can use to push back against cognitive biases. This heady volume provides plenty of food for thought.” —Publishers Weekly

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Thinking 101: Lessons on How To Transform Your Thinking and Your Life Hardcover – 15 Sept. 2022

'A world-class tune-up for your brain' – Daniel H. Pink Why do we think we’re better prepared for job interviews than we are? Why does no one act on climate change? Why do we over think when something bad happens to us? Renowned psychologist Professor Woo-kyoung Ahn devised a course at Yale called 'Thinking' to help students examine the biases that cause people so many problems in their daily lives. It quickly became one of the university’s most popular courses. Now, for the first time, she presents key insights from her years of teaching and research. It’s well known that our minds are tripped up by error, cognitive bias and prejudice. But knowing that isn’t enough: the thinking problems still exist. In this clear guide, Professor Woo-kyoung Ahn gives clear and practical steps to actually change our thinking. The natural follow-up to Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow , Thinking 101 shows how we can improve not just our own daily lives through better awareness of our biases, but the lives of everyone around us. It is required reading for everyone who wants to think - and live - better.

• Print length 288 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Macmillan
• Publication date 15 Sept. 2022
• Reading age 18 years and up
• Dimensions 16.2 x 3 x 24.2 cm
• ISBN-10 1529065860
• ISBN-13 978-1529065862
• See all details

From the Publisher

Product description

Thinking 101 is a must-read – a smart and compellingly readable guide to cutting-edge research into how people think. Building from her popular Yale course, Professor Woo-kyoung Ahn shows how a better understanding of how our minds work can help us become smarter and wiser – and even kinder

About the Author

Product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Macmillan; Main Market edition (15 Sept. 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1529065860
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529065862
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.2 x 3 x 24.2 cm
• 4,815 in Business Life (Books)
• 5,329 in Job Hunting (Books)

About the author

Woo-kyoung ahn.

WOO-KYOUNG AHN is the John Hay Whitney Professor of Psychology at Yale University. After receiving her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, she was assistant professor at Yale University and associate professor at Vanderbilt University. In 2022, she received Yale’s Lex Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences. Her research on thinking biases has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, and she is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science.

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Thinking 101

Woo-kyoung ahn.

On sale September 13, 2022

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Think Better. Live Better.

What do K-pop dances, winning soccer goals, and holiday shopping have in common? Thinking biases! In Thinking 101 , Yale University Professor Woo‑kyoung Ahn presents decades of psychological research alongside relatably fun examples from pop culture to show how we can improve not just our own daily lives through better awareness of our biases, but the lives of everyone around us.

An invaluable resource to anyone who wants to think better. In remarkably clear language, and with engaging and often funny examples, Woo-kyoung Ahn uses cutting-edge research to explain the mistakes we often make—and how to avoid them. Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies

This book is not just a lucid overview of the cognitive traps that wreak havoc on your reasoning—it’s also an expert’s guide to rethinking how you think. Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again

A world-class tune-up for your brain. It will unclog your mental gears, restart your cognitive engine, and put you on the road to making smarter decisions. Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, Drive, and A Whole New Mind

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Book details

Thinking 101

How to Reason Better to Live Better

Author: Woo-kyoung Ahn; read by Lessa Lamb

INTRODUCTION WHEN I WAS A GRADUATE STUDENT at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, doing research in cognitive psychology, our lab group went out every now and then for nachos and beers. It was a great opportunity for us to ask our advisor about things that wouldn’t likely come up in our more formal individual meetings. At one of those gatherings, I summoned up the courage to ask him a question that had been on my mind for some time: “Do you think cognitive psychology can make the world a better place?” I felt a bit like my question was coming out of left field; having already committed my life to this area of study, it was a little late to be asking it. But even though I had presented my findings at cognitive science conferences around the world and was on track to publish them in respected psychology journals, I had been having a hard time explaining the real-life implications of my work to my friends from high school. On that particular day, after struggling to read a paper in which the authors’ primary goal appeared to be to show off how smart they were by tackling a convoluted problem that didn’t exist in the real world, I finally found the courage to raise that question—with some help from the beer. Our advisor was famous for being obscure. If I asked him, “Shall I do A or B for the next experiment?,” he would either answer with a cryptic “Yes,” or turn the question around and ask, “What do you think?” This time I had asked him a simple yes-or-no question, so he chose a simple answer: “Yes.” My lab mates and I sat there silently for what felt like five minutes, waiting for him to elaborate, but that was all he said. Over the course of the next thirty or so years, I’ve tried to answer that question myself by working on problems that I hope have real-world applications. In my research at Yale University, where I’ve been a professor of psychology since 2003, I’ve examined some of the biases that can lead us astray—and developed strategies to correct them in ways that are directly applicable to situations people encounter in their daily lives. In addition to the specific biases I’ve chosen to research, I’ve also explored an array of other real-world “thinking problems” that can cause issues for myself and those around me—students, friends, family. I saw how my students procrastinate because they underestimate the pain of doing an assignment in the future as opposed to doing exactly the same thing right now. I heard from a student who told me about a doctor who misdiagnosed her because he only asked questions that confirmed his original hypothesis. I noted the unhappiness of people who blame themselves for all their troubles because they only see one side of reality, and the unhappiness caused by other people who never see themselves as being at fault for anything at all. I witnessed the frustration of couples who thought they were communicating with perfect clarity but actually were completely misunderstanding each other. And I also saw how “thinking problems” can cause troubles that go far beyond individuals’ lives. These fundamental errors and biases contribute to a wide range of societal issues, including political polarization, complicity in climate change, ethnic profiling, police shootings, and nearly every other problem that stems from stereotyping and prejudice. I introduced a course called “Thinking” to show students how psychology can help them recognize and tackle some of these real-world problems and make better decisions about their lives. It must have filled a real need, because in 2019 alone, more than 450 students enrolled in it. It seemed they craved the kind of guidance psychology could provide, and they told one another about it. I then noticed a curious thing: when I was introduced to students’ family members who were visiting campus, they would often tell me how the students in my course would call home to talk about how they were learning to handle problems in their lives—and that some had even started advising other family members, their parents included. Colleagues told me they overheard students in the dining halls fiercely debating the implications of some of the experiments the course covered. When I would talk to people outside the profession about the issues discussed in the course, they asked me where they could learn more. All of this suggested that people really wanted and needed these kinds of tools, so I decided to write a book to make some of these lessons more broadly available. I selected eight topics that I found most relevant to the real-life problems that my students and others (including myself!) face day to day. Each chapter covers one of them, and while I refer to material from throughout the book when relevant, the chapters are written so they can be read in any order. Although I talk about errors and biases in thinking, this book is not about what is wrong with people. “Thinking problems” happen because we are wired in very particular ways, and there are often good reasons for that. Reasoning errors are mostly by-products of our highly evolved cognition, which has allowed us to get this far as a species and to survive and thrive in the world. As a result, the solutions to these problems are not always easily available. Indeed, any kind of de-biasing is notoriously challenging. Furthermore, if we are to avoid these errors and biases, merely learning what they are and making a mental note that we should not commit them is not enough. It’s just like insomnia; when it happens, you clearly know what the problem is—you can’t sleep well. But telling insomniacs that they should sleep more will never be a solution for insomnia. Similarly, while some of the biases covered in this book may already be familiar to you, we need to provide prescriptions that are better than simply saying, “Don’t do that.” Fortunately, as a growing number of studies attest, there are actionable strategies we can adopt to reason better. These strategies can also help us figure out which things we can’t control, and even show us how solutions that might initially seem promising can ultimately backfire. This book is based on scientific research, mostly from other cognitive psychologists but also on some that I carried out myself. Many of the studies I cite are considered classics that have stood the test of time; others represent the latest results from the field. As I do in my course, I give a variety of examples taken from widely different aspects of our lives to illustrate each point. There’s a reason for that, and you’ll find out why. So, back to the question I asked my advisor: “Can cognitive psychology make the world a better place?” In the years since I first posed it, I’ve come to believe ever more strongly that the answer is indeed, as my advisor so aptly replied, “Yes.” Absolutely yes. 1 THE ALLURE OF FLUENCY Why Things Look So Easy WITH 450 SEATS, LEVINSON AUDITORIUM is one of Yale University’s largest lecture halls, and on Mondays and Wednesdays between 11:35 and 12:50, when my undergraduate course titled “Thinking” meets, nearly every seat is filled. Today’s lecture on overconfidence is likely to be especially entertaining, as my plan is to invite some students to come up to the front and dance to a K-pop video. I begin my lecture with a description of the above-average effect. When one million high school students were asked to rate their leadership abilities, 70 percent assessed their skills as above average, and 60 percent put themselves in the top tenth percentile in terms of their ability to get along with others. When college professors were polled about their teaching skills, two thirds rated themselves in the top 25 percent. After presenting these and other examples of overly generous self-assessments, I ask the students a question: “What percentage of Americans do you think claimed they are better than average drivers?” Students shout out numbers higher than any of the ones they’ve seen so far, like 80 or 85 percent, giggling because they think they are so outrageous. But as it turns out, their guesses are still too low: the right answer is in fact 93 percent. To really teach students about the biases in our thinking, it’s never enough to simply describe results from studies; I try to make them experience these biases for themselves, lest they fall prey to the “not me” bias—the belief that while others may have certain cognitive biases, we ourselves are immune. For example, one student might think that he is not overconfident, because he feels insecure sometimes. Another may think that since her guesses about how she did on an exam are generally close to the mark, she is similarly realistic when she assesses her standing with respect to her peers in leadership, interpersonal relationships, or driving skills. This is where the dancing comes in. I show the class a six-second clip from BTS’s “Boy with Luv,” a music video that has garnered more than 1.4 billion views on YouTube. I purposely chose a segment in which the choreography is not too technical. (If you’ve already found the official music video, it’s between 1:18 and 1:24.) After playing the clip, I tell the students that there will be prizes and that those who can dance this segment successfully will win them. We watch the clip ten more times. We even watch a slowed-down version that was especially created to teach people how to dance to this song. Then I ask for volunteers. Ten brave students walk to the front of the auditorium in a quest for instant fame, and the rest of the students cheer loudly for them. Hundreds of them, I am sure, think that they can do the steps too. After watching the clip so many times, even I feel like I could do it—after all, it’s only six seconds. How hard could it be? The audience demands that the volunteers face them, rather than the screen. The song starts playing. The volunteers flail their arms randomly and jump up and kick, all at wildly different times. One makes up completely new steps. Some give up after three seconds. Everybody laughs hysterically. THE FLUENCY EFFECT Things that our mind can easily process elicit overconfidence. This fluency effect can sneak up on us in several ways. Illusion of Skill Acquisition The class demonstration involving BTS was modeled after a study on the illusion of fluency that can occur when we are learning new skills. In the study, participants watched a six-second video clip of Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk, in which he seems to be walking backwards without lifting his feet off the floor. The steps do not seem complicated, and he does them so effortlessly he doesn’t even appear to be thinking about them. Some participants watched the clip once, while others watched it twenty times. Then they were asked to rate how well they thought they could do the moonwalk themselves. Those who watched the video twenty times were significantly more confident that they could do it than those who watched it just once. Having seen it so many times, they believed they’d memorized every little movement and could easily replay them in their heads. But when the moment of truth arrived and the participants were asked to actually do the moonwalk, there was absolutely no difference between the two groups’ performances. Watching Michael Jackson perform the moonwalk twenty times without practicing did not make you a better moonwalker than someone who had only seen him do it once. People often fall for the illusion that they can perform a difficult feat after seeing someone else accomplish it effortlessly. How many times have we replayed Whitney Houston’s “And A-I-A-I-O-A-I-A-I-A will always love you” in our heads, thinking that it can’t be that hard to hit that high note? Or attempted to create a soufflé after watching someone make one on YouTube? Or started a new diet after seeing those before and after pictures? When we see final products that look fluent, masterful, or just perfectly normal, like a lofty soufflé or a person in good shape, we make the mistake of believing the process that led to those results must have also been fluent, smooth, and easy. When you read a book that’s easy to understand, you may feel like that book must have also been easy to write. If a person hasn’t done any figure skating, she may wonder why a figure skater falls while attempting to perform a double axel when so many others pull it off so effortlessly. It’s easy to forget how many times that book was revised, or how much practice went into those double axels. As Dolly Parton famously said, “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.” TED Talks provide another great example of how we can be misled by fluency. These talks are typically eighteen minutes long, which means their scripts are only about six to eight pages. Given that the speakers must be experts in their topics, one might think that preparing for such a short talk would be a piece of cake; perhaps some speakers simply wing it. Yet according to TED’s guidelines, speakers should dedicate weeks or months to prepare. Speaking coaches have provided more specific guidelines for TED-style talks—at least one hour of rehearsal for every minute that you speak. In other words, you need to rehearse your talk sixty times. And those twenty or so hours are just for rehearsals—they don’t include the hours, days, and weeks that go into figuring out what to include in those six to eight pages of script, and even more importantly, what you should leave out. Short presentations are actually harder to prepare for than long ones, because you don’t have time to think about your next sentence or feel your way toward the perfect transition. I once asked a former student who was working at a prestigious consulting firm whether he thought Yale had prepared him for his job. He said the one thing he wished he’d learned was how to convince a client of something in three minutes. That’s the hardest kind of presentation to pull off because every word counts—but it looks so easy when it’s done right. Illusion of Knowledge The fluency illusion isn’t limited to skills like dancing, singing, or giving talks. You see a second type in the realm of knowledge. We give more credence to new findings once we understand how those findings came about. Consider duct tape, for example. We use it to fix nearly everything, from patching a hole in a sneaker to making an emergency hem in a pair of pants. Studies have found that duct tape can also remove warts as well as or sometimes even better than the standard therapy of liquid nitrogen. It’s hard to believe, until you hear the explanation: warts are caused by a virus, which can be killed when it’s deprived of air and sunlight. Cover a wart with duct tape, and that’s exactly what happens. Given this explanation of the underlying process, the therapeutic power of duct tape sounds that much more credible. Some of my earlier studies were about this sort of phenomenon: namely, that people are more willing to derive a cause from a correlation when they can picture the underlying mechanism. Even though the actual data remains the same, we are much more willing to leap to a causal conclusion when we can envision the fluent process by which an outcome is generated. There’s no problem with that, unless the underlying mechanism is flawed. When we are wrongly convinced that we understand a fluent process, we are more likely to draw a flawed causal conclusion. Let me give you a specific example. While pursuing this line of research, I came across a book entitled The Cosmic Clocks: From Astrology to a Modern Science, which was written in the 1960s by a self-styled “neo-astrologer” named Michel Gauquelin. The book began with a presentation of statistics (although some of them are questionable, for the sake of this illustration, let’s just assume they are all true). For example, Gauquelin says that those who were born immediately after the rise and culmination of Mars—whatever that means—are more likely to grow up to be eminent physicians, scientists, or athletes. He had hundreds or sometimes thousands of data points and used sophisticated statistics to draw his conclusions. Nonetheless, there were skeptics. Even he was puzzled by his own discoveries and searched for an explanation. He dismissed the less scientific hypothesis that planets somehow bestow certain talents on babies at the moment of their birth. He instead offered a seemingly fluent explanation. To some extent, he wrote, our personalities, traits, and intelligence are innate, which means they are already present within us when we are in utero. Fetuses send chemical signals when they are ready to be born, precipitating labor. And fetuses with particular personality traits signal when they are ready for labor in response to subtle gravitational forces that are determined by extraterrestrial events. Given such an elaborate explanation, even a skeptic may err by switching their response from “no way” to “hmm.” Perhaps the illusion of knowledge explains why some conspiracy theories are so persistent. The theory that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy because he was a CIA agent may seem far-fetched, but when an additional explanation is added—that the CIA was concerned about the way the president was handling communism—it sounds more plausible. QAnon’s theory that President Trump was secretly fighting a cabal of satanic pedophiles and cannibals who were hidden in the “Deep State” was said to have come from a source, “Q,” whose high-level security clearance gave him access to the inner workings of the government. Of course, none of it is true, but the illusion of knowledge Q created by sprinkling his posts with operational jargon convinced many of their veracity. Copyright © 2022 by Woo-kyoung Ahn

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"Every day of our lives, we make judgments—and we don’t always do a very good job of it. Thinking 101 is an invaluable resource to anyone who wants to think better. In remarkably...

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"Every day of our lives, we make judgments—and we don’t always do a very good job of it. Thinking 101 is an invaluable resource to anyone who wants to think better. In remarkably clear language, and with engaging and often funny examples, Woo-kyoung Ahn uses cutting-edge research to explain the mistakes we often make—and how to avoid them.”—Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies "Thinking 101 is a must-read—a smart and compellingly readable guide to cutting-edge research into how people think. Building from her popular Yale course, Professor Woo-kyoung Ahn shows how a better understanding of how our minds work can help us become smarter and wiser—and even kinder."—Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto, Brooks and Suzanne Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University, and the author of The Sweet Spot "With an engaging and fresh narration, Lessa presents each fascinating chapter in a fun and easy way that helps listeners understand how to think more clearly and constructively."- AudioFile Psychologist Woo-kyoung Ahn devised a course at Yale called “Thinking” to help students examine the biases that cause so many problems in their daily lives. It quickly became one of the university’s most popular courses. Now, for the first time, Ahn presents key insights from her years of teaching and research in a book for everyone. She shows how “thinking problems” stand behind a wide range of challenges, from common, self-inflicted daily aggravations to our most pressing societal issues and inequities. Throughout, Ahn draws on decades of research from other cognitive psychologists, as well as from her own groundbreaking studies. And she presents it all in a compellingly accessible style that uses fun examples from pop culture, anecdotes from her own life, and illuminating stories from history and the headlines. Thinking 101 is an audiobook that goes far beyond other resources on thinking, showing how we can improve not just our own daily lives through better awareness of our biases but also the lives of everyone around us. It is, quite simply, required listening for everyone who wants to think—and live—better. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

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