wall charts
how we decide
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 lean on which part 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 by daniel kahneman colin camerer and others 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