How We Decide

Synopsis (via Amazon)

The first book to use the unexpected discoveries of neuroscience to help us make the best decisions. Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate, or we blink and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the minds black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, theyre discovering that this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reasonand the precise mix depends on the situation. When buying a house, for example, its best to let our unconscious mull over the many variables. But when were picking a stock, intuition often leads us astray. The trick is to determine when to use the different parts of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think. Jonah Lehrer arms us with the tools we need, drawing on cutting-edge research as well as the real-world experiences of a wide range of decidersfrom airplane pilots and hedge fund investors to serial killers and poker players. Lehrer shows how people are taking advantage of the new science to make better television shows, win more football games, and improve military intelligence. His goal is to answer two questions that are of interest to just about anyone, from CEOs to firefighters: How does the human mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better?

Go read it.
Lehrer illustrates each type of decision making with thorough examples and clear explanations, making it very easy to understand. I was surprised to find the "best" decision making method is quite contrary to the commonly believed method.

I really don't think any further justification is needed xD Instead I'll try to summarize the key points in this book for mine and your future reference. (btw chapter 8 "The Poker Hand" section 4 is pretty much a summary)

Simple Problems Require Reason.

• Simple problems = less variables.
• Prefrontal cortex = old fashioned calculator where as emotional brain = fancy laptop with parallel processing. Very constrained.
• Use if decision can be described in numerical terms.

Novel Problems Also Require Reason.

• Think whether you have any related previous experience, if no, emotional will screw you over.
• Unique problems need creative solutions, which comes from the flexible neurons of the prefrontal cortex.
  
• But a happy mood could help because the prefrontal cortex needs not to decide its resources between the problem at hand and your emotional well being.
  

Embrace Uncertainty.

• Certainty blocks off any and all evidence that contradicts your conclusion.
  
• Although you may not always have time to internally debate, but let the debate run on whenever you can. Bad decisions are usually the result of a forced consensus is imposed.
• 2 tips: always entertain the opposite hypothesis (be your own devil's advocate) and remind yourself what you don't know.
  
• "Tell me what you know, then tell me what you don't know, only then can you tell me what you think" Colin Powell to his intelligence officers.

You Know More Than You Know.

• The conscious brain is unaware of any activity (thinking) that happens outside of the prefrontal cortex.
• Emotions: representation of all the info we process but don't perceive.
• Different emotional areas of the brain process different aspects of the world.
• Has massive computing power, good at making hard decisions.
  
• Learns from mistakes, brain learns by accumulating wisdom through error. After you have built up lots of experiences, trust your emotions more than reason.
  

lastly and most importantly...
Think About Thinking.

• Beware of the kind of decision you are making and the process that leads up to it.
  
• Helps avoid stupid mistakes (eg. loss aversion). Can outsmart the innate flaws of the brain.

[The] most astonishing thing about the human brain: it can always improve itself. Tomorrow, we can make better decisions.