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Zusammenfassung von Think Like a Freak

Name: Think Like a Freak
Rating: 4.3 (158 reviews)
Author: Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Find the unconvential yet brilliant ideas hidden in data

4.3 (158 Bewertungen)

21 Min.

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Think Like a Freak
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What’s in it for me? Improve your problem-solving abilities by freeing yourself from conventions.

Have you ever made a particular choice just because everyone around you seemed to support it? How often have you found yourself repeating an argument you came across in the media, even though you haven’t really thought it through?

We’re often restricted by conventional wisdom about how the world works. Moreover, this kind of popular belief is especially limiting when it comes to decision making and problem solving.

Think Like A Freak, from the authors of Freakonomics, aims to solve this particular problem by showing the world, one reader at a time, how to think unconventionally – “a bit differently, a bit harder, a bit more freely”, as the authors put it.

In these blinks, you’ll learn to see the world as no one else does, and, in doing so, to find solutions that you would not have otherwise considered. In short, these blinks will show you how to think like a freak.

Along the way you’ll also find out:

why kids are harder to fool than adults when it comes to magic tricks,
why you should never depend on the predictions of an expert,
how a skinny college student won the world’s biggest hotdog-eating championship, doubling the previous record and
how the legalization of abortion in the 1970s led to a massive drop in crime in the 1990s.

Thinking like a freak means violating conventions; it might win you the World Cup but won’t necessarily make you popular.

When we try to solve problems, most of us are guided by conventional beliefs. However, there’s a problem with conventional beliefs: they’re often wrong.

Take, for example, the “local food” movement. Most people believe that consuming local food reduces environmental impact.

However, a recent study found that this movement was actually counterproductive because the small farms it supports consume more energy for production, outweighing any positive effects of reduced transportation.

This is exactly what thinking like a freak is about: basing one's beliefs and decisions on statistical evidence, rather than conventional wisdom.

But how can this be of use in everyday life? Well, for one thing, thinking like a freak can help you to solve problems.

For example, imagine you’re a soccer player about to make a penalty kick which could win your team the World Cup.

How can you increase your chances of scoring? If you’re right-footed, as most players are, aiming towards the left will result in a stronger, more accurate kick. Goalkeepers are aware of this strategy, so 57 percent of the time they’ll jump to the kicker’s left side, and 41 percent to the right.

Interestingly, however, keepers remain in the goal’s center only two percent of the time, so a kick “straight up the middle” is seven percent more likely to be successful than a kick to either corner.

But while thinking like a freak has many advantages, it might also put your popularity at risk.

For example, only 17 percent of all penalties in professional soccer are aimed towards the center.

Why?

Because it’s such an obvious violation of the conventions. Also, if the goalkeeper remains in the center and catches the ball with zero effort, the penalty-taker might well lose the faith of his fans.

Or, for example, imagine how popular you’ll be when you tell a “locavore” friend that the local-food movement actually hurts the environment!

Admit when you don’t know something, and never blindly trust experts.

Many of us find it hard to admit if we don’t know something. Instead of confessing our lack of knowledge, we are overconfident and pretend we know something when actually we don’t.

In terms of overconfidence, consider the fact that when asked to rate their driving skills, roughly 80 percent of people rated themselves as “above average”, even though – by definition – just 49.99 percent of them can be above-average drivers.

When solving a problem, look past the public discussion and redefine the problem.

Whenever the media focuses on a single aspect of a problem – for instance, on the ethnic background of a criminal – rather than considering a host of other relevant factors, their arguments tend to determine public discourse.

However, since public discussion can cause us to overlook other, more fruitful approaches, we should try to look beyond the media’s focus.

Think outside the box to identify the root cause of problems – don’t focus on the symptoms.

Finding the root cause of a problem is always a challenge. So what’s the best strategy to get you there?

A particularly useful approach is to think “outside the box.”

Think like a child: Have fun, be curious and confront the obvious.

In many ways, thinking like a freak means thinking like a child.

For example, imagine that you’re a professional magician. Which audience would you prefer: kids or adults?

In order to solve a problem, pay attention to the way in which incentives drive human behavior.

The key to understanding problems and arriving at solutions is to understand how incentives direct our behavior.

In an experiment that psychologist Robert Cialdini conducted to determine the strongest incentive for people to save energy, participants were instructed to rate the relative influence of four factors on their decision to conserve energy.

If you understand what drives people you can set strategic traps that reveal their bad sides.

Usually, a person who is lying or cheating will respond differently to a given incentive than an honest person would – a fact that can be used to distinguish the good guys from the bad.

How? By employing certain strategies, such as faking cruelty, you can make people reveal their true intentions.

Before you can persuade someone, you have to make her listen.

You’ve probably noticed that when you challenge someone’s common sense, you often encounter disagreement.

So what can you do to persuade your opponents?

Letting go of conventional wisdom can make you happier with your life.

Not only does thinking like a freak help us to problem solve, it can also make us happier.

How?

Final Summary

The key message in this book:

Conventional wisdom is often wrong, and challenging popular dogmas can give you a better understanding of how things work. Learning how to think like a freak can help you to explore the hidden sides of problems, leading to surprising and effective solutions. Curiosity and the inclination to think outside the box are crucial ingredients for achieving this mindset.

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Worum geht es in Think Like a Freak?

Think Like A Freak is a blueprint for thinking unconventionally and creatively. It demonstrates the benefits of letting go of conventional wisdoms, and teaches you to dig deeper to find out how things really work. By learning to think like a "freak", you’ll gain access to an entirely new way of solving problems and making sense of the world.

Bestes Zitat aus Think Like a Freak

Sometimes in life, going straight up the middle is the boldest move of all.

—Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Wer Think Like a Freak lesen sollte

Anyone who likes to challenge conventional beliefs
Anyone interested in how statistics can help solve problems
Anyone who wants to learn how to think more creatively and unconventionally

Über den Autor

Steven D. Levitt is a professor at the University of Chicago. He was awarded with the John Bates Clark medal, one of the most prestigious awards in the field of economics, second only to the Nobel Prize.

Stephen J. Dubner is an award-winning journalist who has worked for the New York Times.

As a team, Levitt and Dubner have written two bestselling books: Freakonomics and its sequel, SuperFreakonomics.

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