The Irrational Mind

The Irrational Mind PDF Author: Spencer J. Fraseur
Publisher: Spencer Fraseur
ISBN: 1735275700
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
"Having an understanding of the human mind and how it functions is probably the single most important thing anyone who wants to be successful can do." We make thousands of decisions every day. In fact, research suggests that an adult brain makes on average about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions on a daily basis. When we were younger, choices were most likely simple. As we get older, our level of responsibility increases and so does the amount of choices that we are faced with on a daily basis. With ever increasing choices and responsibility at least our decision making process stays the same, right? In actuality, our decision making process is broken. It's warped and sometimes even shattered by cognitive bias. Why are we so afraid of sharks or plane crashes yet continue to do far more dangerous things? Why do we instinctively look for patterns to inform our decision making and bring meaning to our world? Why can't we listen to reason when we need it most? Join Spencer Fraseur through a journey of real stories of flawed logic and bad behavior in business (and in life) to discover what can be done to overcome the hidden forces that impact our everyday decisions.

The Irrational Mind

The Irrational Mind PDF Author: Spencer J. Fraseur
Publisher: Spencer Fraseur
ISBN: 1735275700
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Get Book

Book Description
"Having an understanding of the human mind and how it functions is probably the single most important thing anyone who wants to be successful can do." We make thousands of decisions every day. In fact, research suggests that an adult brain makes on average about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions on a daily basis. When we were younger, choices were most likely simple. As we get older, our level of responsibility increases and so does the amount of choices that we are faced with on a daily basis. With ever increasing choices and responsibility at least our decision making process stays the same, right? In actuality, our decision making process is broken. It's warped and sometimes even shattered by cognitive bias. Why are we so afraid of sharks or plane crashes yet continue to do far more dangerous things? Why do we instinctively look for patterns to inform our decision making and bring meaning to our world? Why can't we listen to reason when we need it most? Join Spencer Fraseur through a journey of real stories of flawed logic and bad behavior in business (and in life) to discover what can be done to overcome the hidden forces that impact our everyday decisions.

Investing and the Irrational Mind: Rethink Risk, Outwit Optimism, and Seize Opportunities Others Miss

Investing and the Irrational Mind: Rethink Risk, Outwit Optimism, and Seize Opportunities Others Miss PDF Author: Robert Koppel
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 0071753435
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Behavioral finance expert and bestselling author Robert Koppel shows traders and investors how to invest your money rationally, even in an irrational world "Investing," according to Robert Koppel, "Involves far more than specific analytical and strategic skills. It requires the development of habits, thought patterns and creative attitudes that influence the way to think and act in the market." In Investing and the Irrational Mind, Koppel, author of the classic bestseller,The Inner Game of Trading, uses the latest advancements in behavioral finance and neuroeconomics to help you gain these habits, as well as the deep understanding of market risk factors necessary to successful portfolio building. Armed with 30 years' experience as an analyst, and fund manager, and interviews with top traders, behavioral economists, risk managers and neuroscientists, Koppel lets you build a personal arsenal of risk management skills ("quantitative architecture") necessary for investors at any level to develop a focused, disciplined, confident, and profitable approach to investing. Filled with surprising insights into human behavior, and rock-solid financial advice, this is the guide you need to invest in today's markets.

Sway

Sway PDF Author: Ori Brafman
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0385530609
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
A fascinating journey into the hidden psychological influences that derail our decision-making, Sway will change the way you think about the way you think. Why is it so difficult to sell a plummeting stock or end a doomed relationship? Why do we listen to advice just because it came from someone “important”? Why are we more likely to fall in love when there’s danger involved? In Sway, renowned organizational thinker Ori Brafman and his brother, psychologist Rom Brafman, answer all these questions and more. Drawing on cutting-edge research from the fields of social psychology, behavioral economics, and organizational behavior, Sway reveals dynamic forces that influence every aspect of our personal and business lives, including loss aversion (our tendency to go to great lengths to avoid perceived losses), the diagnosis bias (our inability to reevaluate our initial diagnosis of a person or situation), and the “chameleon effect” (our tendency to take on characteristics that have been arbitrarily assigned to us). Sway introduces us to the Harvard Business School professor who got his students to pay $204 for a $20 bill, the head of airline safety whose disregard for his years of training led to the transformation of an entire industry, and the football coach who turned conventional strategy on its head to lead his team to victory. We also learn the curse of the NBA draft, discover why interviews are a terrible way to gauge future job performance, and go inside a session with the Supreme Court to see how the world’s most powerful justices avoid the dangers of group dynamics. Every once in a while, a book comes along that not only challenges our views of the world but changes the way we think. In Sway, Ori and Rom Brafman not only uncover rational explanations for a wide variety of irrational behaviors but also point readers toward ways to avoid succumbing to their pull.

Talking to 'Crazy'

Talking to 'Crazy' PDF Author: Mark Goulston
Publisher: AMACOM
ISBN: 0814439594
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
“[Goulston’s]ideas are a bit counter-intuitive but they really do shift the dynamic and help people diffuse and disarm the irrational person leading to more positive outcomes.” -- Online MBA Because some people are beyond difficult... Let’s face it, we all know people who are irrational. No matter how hard you try to reason with them, it never works. So what’s the solution? How do you talk to someone who’s out of control? What can you do with a boss who bullies, a spouse who yells, or a friend who frequently bursts into tears? In his book, Just Listen, Mark Goulston shared his bestselling formula for getting through to the resistant people in your life. Now, in his breakthrough new book Talking to Crazy, he brings his communication magic to the most difficult group of all—the downright irrational. As a psychiatrist, Goulston has seen his share of crazy and he knows from experience that you can’t simply argue it away. The key to handling irrational people is to learn to lean into the crazy—to empathize with it. That radically changes the dynamic and transforms you from a threat into an ally. Talking to Crazy explains this counterintuitive Sanity Cycle and reveals: Why people act the way they do • How instinctive responses can exacerbate the situation—and what to do instead • When to confront a problem and when to walk away • How to use a range of proven techniques including Time Travel, the Fish-bowl, and the Belly Roll • And much more You can’t reason with unreasonable people—but you can reach them. This powerful and practical book shows you how.

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational PDF Author: Dan Ariely
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006135323X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Intelligent, lively, humorous, and thoroughly engaging, "The Predictably Irrational" explains why people often make bad decisions and what can be done about it.

Denialism

Denialism PDF Author: Michael Specter
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101151021
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In this provocative and headline-making book, Michael Specter confronts the widespread fear of science and its terrible toll on individuals and the planet. In Denialism, New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter reveals that Americans have come to mistrust institutions and especially the institution of science more today than ever before. For centuries, the general view had been that science is neither good nor bad—that it merely supplies information and that new information is always beneficial. Now, science is viewed as a political constituency that isn’t always in our best interest. We live in a world where the leaders of African nations prefer to let their citizens starve to death rather than import genetically modified grains. Childhood vaccines have proven to be the most effective public health measure in history, yet people march on Washington to protest their use. In the United States a growing series of studies show that dietary supplements and “natural” cures have almost no value, and often cause harm. We still spend billions of dollars on them. In hundreds of the best universities in the world, laboratories are anonymous, unmarked, and surrounded by platoons of security guards—such is the opposition to any research that includes experiments with animals. And pharmaceutical companies that just forty years ago were perhaps the most visible symbol of our remarkable advance against disease have increasingly been seen as callous corporations propelled solely by avarice and greed. As Michael Specter sees it, this amounts to a war against progress. The issues may be complex but the choices are not: Are we going to continue to embrace new technologies, along with acknowledging their limitations and threats, or are we ready to slink back into an era of magical thinking? In Denialism, Specter makes an argument for a new Enlightenment, the revival of an approach to the physical world that was stunningly effective for hundreds of years: What can be understood and reliably repeated by experiment is what nature regarded as true. Now, at the time of mankind’s greatest scientific advances—and our greatest need for them—that deal must be renewed.

NeuroLogic

NeuroLogic PDF Author: Eliezer Sternberg
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030790878X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
A groundbreaking investigation of the brain’s hidden logic behind our strangest behaviors, and of how conscious and unconscious systems interact in order to create our experience and preserve our sense of self. From bizarre dreams and hallucinations to schizophrenia and multiple personalities, the human brain is responsible for a diverse spectrum of strange thoughts and behaviors. When observed from the outside, these phenomena are often written off as being just “crazy,” but what if they were actually planned and logical? NeuroLogic explores the brain’s internal system of reasoning, from its unconscious depths to conscious decision making, and illuminates how it explains our most outlandish as well as our most stereotyped behaviors. From sleepwalking murderers, contagious yawning, and the brains of sports fans to false memories, subliminal messages, and the secret of ticklishness, Dr. Eliezer Sternberg shows that there are patterns to the way the brain interprets the world—–patterns that fit the brain’s unique logic. Unraveling these patterns and the various ways they can be disturbed will not only alter our view of mental illness and supernatural experience, but will also shed light on the hidden parts of ourselves. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)

The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking

The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking PDF Author: Matthew Hutson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0452298903
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A provocative and entertaining look at the psychology of superstition and religion, how they make us human—and how we can use them to our advantage What is so special about touching a piano John Lennon once owned? Why do we yell at our laptops? And why do people like to say, “Everything happens for a reason”? Drawing on cognitive science, anthropology, and neuroscience, Matthew Hutson shows us that magical thinking is not only hardwired into our brains—it’s been a factor in our evolutionary success. Magical thinking helps us believe that we have free will and an underlying purpose as it protects us from the paralyzing awareness of our own mortality. Interweaving entertaining stories, personal reflections, and sharp observations, The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking reveals just how this seemingly irrational process informs and improves the lives of even the most hardened skeptics.

The Irrational Ape

The Irrational Ape PDF Author: David Robert Grimes
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471178277
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
THE IRISH TIMES TOP FIVE BESTSELLER 'An unstoppable page-turner. If our leaders were forced to read this book, the world would be a safer place' Richard Dawkins 'A beautifully reasoned book about our own unreasonableness' Robin Ince Why did revolutionary China consider the sparrow an 'animal of capitalism' - and what happened when they tried to wipe them out? With a cast of murderous popes, snake-oil salesmen and superstitious pigeons, find out why flawed logic puts us all at risk, and how critical thinking can save the world. It may seem a big claim, but knowing how to think clearly and critically has literally helped save the world. In September 1983, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's early warning system showed five US missiles heading towards the country. Stanislaw Petrov knew his duty: he was to inform Moscow that nuclear war had begun, so that they could launch an immediate and devastating response. Instead, he made a call to say the system was faulty. He'd assessed the situation and reasoned that an error was more likely than such a limited attack. We may not have to save the planet from nuclear annihilation, of course, but our ability to think critically has never been more important. In a world where fake news, mistrust of experts, prejudice and ignorance all too often hold sway, we can all too easily be misled over issues such as vaccinations, climate change or conspiracy theories. We live in an era where access to all the knowledge in the world is at our fingertips, yet that also means misinformation and falsehoods can spread further and faster than ever before. In The Irrational Ape, David Robert Grimes shows how we can be lured into making critical mistakes or drawing false conclusions, and how to avoid such errors. Given the power of modern science and the way that movements can unite to protest a cause via social media, we are in dangerous times. But fortunately, we can learn from our mistakes, and by critical thinking and scientific method we can discover how to apply these techniques to everything from deciding what insurance to buy to averting global disaster. This book, packed with fascinating case studies and examples, helps ensure we are ready for the modern world.

The Irrational Economist

The Irrational Economist PDF Author: Erwann Michel-Kerjan
Publisher: Public Affairs
ISBN: 1586487809
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
The authors explore how discoveries in decision sciences will enhance traditional ideas about economics and challenges the conventional wisdom about how to make the right decisions in an emerging new era, in a book that includes informative charts.