In The Art of Thinking Clearly, Rolf Dobelli breaks down the most common logical fallacies that plague humanity. Logical fallacies affect everyone, are extremely difficult to avoid, and can hinder our decision-making ability. Dobelli encourages readers to improve their decisions by learning how to recognize these fallacies and how to work around them. Humans experience different reasoning patterns, out of which many are a barrier to logical thinking.
Most of these cognitive errors are common, which means that it is possible to identify them. Knowing what you have been and are dealing with means that you will be able to avoid similar mistakes in the future. What are these cognitive errors talked about?
To start with, inspirational stories. We all love “rags to riches” stories since they make us feel that everything is possible. But inspirational stories tend to make us think illogically since we immediately identify ourselves with those “one in a million” exceptions. But why do we get trapped into such thinking habits? Well, it is safe to say that most people discredit information that is not in line with their beliefs. The world is changing all the time, and most of the time we know less than what we think we know.
Key Lessons from “The Art of Thinking Clearly”
- Outcome Bias
- Loss Aversion and Fear of Regret
- Alternative Blindness
Outcome Bias
Outcome bias is the tendency to assess decisions based on the results they give. However, a bad result does not necessarily mean that a decision was bad. Every result is a sum of both decisions and external factors such as luck or timing.