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Start giftingOn Second Thought
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreOur brains are marvels, hard-wired by millions of years of evolution to boast a number of mental shortcuts, biases, and tricks that allow us to negotiate our complicated lives without overthinking every choice and decision we have to make. Unfortunately, those ancient shortcuts don't always work to our advantage in our modern lives—when we don't also think slowly and rationally, those hard-wired habits can trip us up. This intriguing book helps us to understand how our minds are predisposed to think about the world—and how to avoid many of life's common mistakes.
Among the surprising examples of these mental habits at work in our lives:
—Experienced skiers make fatal mistakes on familiar terrain more often than less experienced ones.
—Ninety-nine point nine percent of the citizens of France are registered organ donors, but only 28 percent of Americans are.
—Early birds on jury duty are more likely to succumb to racial stereotypes in delivering verdicts when the day gets late.
—People who are hungry for lunch will donate less money to charity.
Wray Herbert introduces us to twenty of these shortcuts and biases, explaining how they affect us in the real world and how they're being studied in labs around the world.
Wray Herbert, who has been writing about psychology and human behavior for more than twenty-five years, currently writes two regular columns for Newsweek and Scientific American Mind. Wray serves as senior director for science communication for the Association for Psychological Science, where he writes a popular blog about new psychological research. He has also been assistant managing editor at U.S. News & World Report, editor in chief of Psychology Today, and behavioral science editor of the weekly magazine Science News. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and other national publications.
Dan John Miller is an American actor and musician. In the Oscar-winning Walk the Line, he starred as Johnny Cash's guitarist and best friend, Luther Perkins, and has also appeared in George Clooney's Leatherheads and My One and Only, with Renee Zellweger. An award-winning audiobook narrator, Dan has garnered multiple Audie Award nominations, winning for The Wrecking Crew by Kent Hartman; has twice been named a Best Voice by AudioFile magazine; and has received several AudioFile Golden Earphones Awards and a Listen-Up Award from Publishers Weekly. He has narrated books by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Roth as well as by Pat Conroy, Andre Dubus III, John Green, Nora Roberts, and Dean Koontz. Dan lives in the Detroit, Michigan, area with his wife, Tracee Mae, and their daughter, Frances Rose.