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Name: The Art Of Thinking Clearly
Rating: 4.2 (366 reviews)
Author: Rolf Dobelli

Rolf Dobelli

The "hiccups" in our everyday thinking.

4.2 (366 ratings)

24 mins

Topics

Effectiveness Neuroscience

Table of Contents

The Art Of Thinking Clearly
Summary of 11 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 11

What’s in it for me? Find out how irrational you are every day.

You’re probably a rational person, right? You’re probably pretty good at assessing your own abilities, too. Unfortunately, this is pretty unlikely! But don’t worry, you’re in good company: we are all far less rational and far more capricious in our decision-making than we believe ourselves to be.

Like it or not, our brains are a mishmash of shortcuts and rules-of-thumb that helped our ancient ancestors avoid becoming lion lunch and stay alive long enough to pass on these traits to posterity.

These days, however, these shortcuts lead to many fallacies and biases that hurt us more than they help us.

These blinks will explain some of the main traps you probably fall into every single day, and along the way will provide you with tips on how to steer your way around them and start thinking clearly.

You’ll learn why you should never bring your most beautiful friend along to a club if you’re trying to get lucky.

You’ll also discover why 84 percent of Frenchmen erroneously believe they are above-average lovers, as well as how a little sunshine (or lack thereof) can lead to booms and busts in the stock market.

And finally, you’ll find out that you might not want to trust yourself to spot a gorilla, even if it’s standing right in front of you!

We systematically overestimate our abilities in many areas of life.

Do you feel that you have a pretty realistic grasp of your abilities? That, while others might delude themselves into overestimating their abilities, you don’t? If so, you aren’t alone: we all tend to view ourselves through rose-tinted glasses.

Research has shown that we are overconfident in many areas of life.

For example, studies have shown that 84 percent of Frenchmen consider themselves to be above-average lovers. In reality, it’s only possible for 50 percent to be considered “above average,” since, statistically speaking, 50 percent should rank higher and the other half should rank lower.

Similarly, research has shown that 93 percent of US students ranked themselves as “above-average” drivers, and 68 percent of University of Nebraska faculty ranked their own teaching abilities in the top quartile.

These numbers show that the majority of us rate our abilities higher than they probably are.

Not only that, but we also mistakenly attribute successes to our own abilities and failures to external factors.

Researchers even tested this by having a group of subjects take a personality test, and then assigning arbitrary scores to the tests. When the subjects were later interviewed, they found that those with “good” scores believed that the test results had fairly reflected their true abilities, thus successfully assessing their great personalities.

Those who received “bad” scores, however, found the ratings to be useless, and that the test itself ‒ and not their personality ‒ was garbage.

Have you ever had a similar experience? If you got an A on a high school exam, for example, you probably felt that you were responsible for your success. If you flunked, you probably thought that it wasn’t your fault, and that the test was unfair, or some other circumstance caused your failure.

Knowing this, you should therefore be aware of our tendency to overestimate our knowledge and attribute all our success to our own skills. A good way to overcome this might be to invite an honest friend out to coffee and ask for their candid opinion on your strengths and weaknesses.

We can control and predict much less than we think in life.

Have you ever thought about why people at casinos throw their dice harder if they want a high number, and gently if they need a low one to win big?

These gamblers are suffering from the illusion of control – i.e., the belief that we can influence things that we in fact cannot control.

We tend to follow what the group does – and we’ll conform to prevent ourselves from being excluded.

When a soloist at a concert puts on a particularly riveting performance, it’s not uncommon for someone in the audience to spontaneously burst into applause. Suddenly everyone else joins the chorus – including you! But why?

This is due to a phenomenon called social proof, which makes us feel like our behavior is correct when it matches other people’s.

We interpret information so that it fits with our self-image and our pre-existing beliefs.

Do you consider yourself a good judge of character, whose first impressions of people often prove true later? Many people think this way about themselves, but in fact, it's likely that they are just the victims of confirmation bias.

In actuality, we all suffer from confirmation bias, i.e., the tendency to interpret new information in such a fashion that our previous conclusions remain intact. Indeed, it is so common that it is even said to be “the mother of all misconceptions.”

We determine the value of things based on their availability and by comparing them to others.

Have you ever gone to a club with a much more attractive friend, looking to meet someone but instead striking out all evening? Why is this? Quite simply: your friend makes people find you less attractive than you actually are.

As it turns out, we are not very good at making absolute judgments, relying instead on comparisons.

We tend to be engrossed by the interesting: whether compelling stories or exotic explanations.

Do you find it difficult to remember the five items on the shopping list you composed only ten minutes ago, yet have no trouble at all remembering the intricate details of the plot of the movie you saw last week?

This is because we need information to form meaningful stories before it makes sense to us; conversely, we are repelled by abstract details.

Our attention is very selective and narrow.

If something strange was happening right in front of you, like a gorilla running around, you’d notice, right? In fact, you probably wouldn’t if you were focusing on something else.

It turns out that our focus is very narrow, and we miss everything that occurs outside it.

Making decisions can be tiresome, especially when you are faced with many possible choices.

In today’s world we face limitless choices about products and lifestyle. Be it finding the right wine or the best university, you are bombarded with options. For most people it’s difficult or even impossible to manage this cornucopia.

Indeed, a large selection leads to an inability to come to a decision, and we often just give up instead.

We like others if they are attractive, flatter us or remind us of ourselves.

How many beautiful, smiling faces do you see plastered on billboards on a daily basis? It’s no mistake: businesses know that we are all susceptible to good looks and charm.

In fact, a single quality – whether beauty, social status, age, etc. – produces in us a positive or negative impression that outshines everything else. This is called the halo effect.

Feelings guide our decisions more than we think.

Would you consider yourself to be rational decision maker? Try this exercise, and see: decide right now whether or not you are in favor of genetically modified food.

How did you come to your decision? A truly rational approach would be to separately consider both the advantages and disadvantages of genetically modified foods: first, assess each “pro” in terms of importance, and then multiply each by the probability that those advantages will actually occur. Then, do the same with each “con.”

Final Summary

The key message in this book:

We think we are better than we actually are and we automatically seek out information that confirms us in our pre-existing beliefs. We also have a preference for the exotic, beautiful people and a small rather than a large selection of things. We notice only a limited amount of the things in front of us, and don’t know how to make absolute judgments. And our decisions are guided by our emotions and by the way that people around us are behaving.

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What is The Art Of Thinking Clearly about?

The Art Of Thinking Clearly aims to illuminate our day-to-day thinking “hiccups” so that we can better avoid them and start making improved choices. Using both psychological studies and everyday examples, the author provides us with an entertaining collection of all of our most common fallacies.

Best quote from The Art Of Thinking Clearly

In daily life, because triumph is made more visible than failure, you systematically overestimate your chances of succeeding.

—Rolf Dobelli

Who should read The Art Of Thinking Clearly?

Anyone interested in learning about our psychology
Anyone who wants to improve her ability to make decisions
Anyone who wants to learn how not to fall into the same mind-trap again and again

About the Author

Rolf Dobelli is a writer and entrepreneur with a PhD in philosophy, as well as the founder of Zurich.Minds, a community of high-profile thinkers. He is also a regular contributor at esteemed European newspapers like Die Zeit and FAZ and has written six novels.

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