How We Decide

"If you're going to take one idea away from this book, take this one: Whenever you make a decision, be aware of the kind of decision you are making and the kind of thought process it requires." If you think about a book on human behaviours, unexpected findings, and researches, you could probably think of a lot of them. If you add neuroscience to the mix, you would probably think of a few. But if you think of that kind of book with a practical and solid guideline for you to change how you live your life, I doubt you could find that many. And "How We Decide" by Jonah Lehrer falls in that category. The book is about `decisions' and how they are made by rationality and emotions from you brain (there are lots of parts within the frontal cortex but I'm not sure which). This is another typical book of this genre but let me tell you why should you `decide' to get this book. Contents The Quarterback in the Pocket The first story starts with the 2002 Super Bowl and how Tom Brady made the decision that led the team to victory. Lehrer moved onto stories of Plato and the very interesting one is the man who had a brain damage and lost emotions and eventually, he just could not `decide'. This chapter focuses on `emotion' and how it is crucial to decision making. The Predictions of Dopamine The chapter begins with the story of Lieutenant Commander Michael Riley who commanded a British destroyer and decided to do something vital during the Persian Gulf War (I'm not going to spoil the story). The author also wrote about Bill Robertie, a chess master, a widely respected poker expert, and a backgammon champion. By the way, this is not my field but Dopamine is the brain region (or cell, or neurons, or whatever) that links our emotion to expectations. Fooled by a Feeling Emotions cannot do everything. The author wrote about Ann Klinestiver, a Parkinson teacher who became a slot machine addict (and lost literally almost everything in life) AFTER her Parkinson's disease `treatment'. The chapter moves onto basketball player's hot hands, stock investment, and a game show `Deal or No Deal'. The epic part of this chapter is about credit card (I am personally moved by this part and it sent shiver down my spine). The core of this chapter that wild feelings or emotions can bring us down. The Uses of Reason The story of a firefighter who survive the thick wall of raging fire starts the chapter perfectly because it is about how reasons are crucial at certain times. There is also another heartfelt story about a young girl, Mary, who were a brilliant and bright girl with bright future but one day she became different and ruined her life drinking, sleeping around and became angry a lot. She was eventually infected by HIV because of her brain tumor! Another great story in this chapter is how Captain Al Haynes of the United Airlines Flight 232 could maneuver the plane without basically everything working except the thrust levers. Choking on Thought The chapter begins with the

With regard to neuroscience, I am the among non-scholars who have a keen interest in what the brain and mind are and how they function, and am especially interested in how decisions are made. In recent years, I have read a variety of books that have helped me to increase my knowledge in these specific areas. They include William Calvin's How Brains Think: Evolving Intelligence, Then and Now, Gerald Edelman's Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On The Matter Of The Mind, Guy Claxton's Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less, Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future, Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, and most recently, Torkel Klingberg's The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory. I am grateful to these and other volumes for increasing my understanding of the decision-making process while realizing that is still so much more that I need to know. Hence my interest in Jonah Lehrer's book, How We Decide. In the Introduction in which he shares an experience aboard a simulated flight landing at Tokyo Narita International Airport, Lehrer observes: "In the end, the difference between landing my plane in one piece and my dying in a fiery crash came down to a single decision made in the panicked moments after the engine fire...This book is about how we make decisions. It's about airline pilots, NFL quarterbacks, television directors, poker players, professional investors, and serial killers...[Ever since the ancient Greeks, assumptions about decision making have revolved around a single theme: humans are ration.] There's only one problem with this assumption of human rationality: It's not how the brain works...We can look inside the brain and see how humans think: the black box has been broken open. It turns out we weren't designed to be rational creatures...Whenever someone makes a decision, the brain is awash in feeling, driven by its inexplicable passions. Even when a person tries to be reasonable and restrained, these emotional impulses secretly influence judgment...Knowing how the mind [i.e. `a powerful biological machine'] works is useful knowledge, since it shows us how to get the most out of the machine. But the brain doesn't exist in a vacuum; all decisions are made in the context of the real world." Then in the Coda, Lehrer re-visits the approach into the Tokyo airport that, we now realize, serves as the central metaphor in his book. "When the onboard computers and pilots properly interact, it's an ideal model for decision-making. The rational brain (the pilot) and the emotional brain (the cockpit computers) exist in perfect equilibrium, each system focusing on those areas in which it has a comparative advantage. The reason planes are so safe, areas in which it has a competitive advantage. The reason planes are so safe, even though both the pilot and the autopilot are fallible, is that both systems are constantly working to correct each other. Mistake

Lehrer is a superb science writer and this is an excellent non-technical introduction to the psychology of decision making. This is one of my favorite topics, so there was very little here that was new to me or particularly original other than Lehrer's smooth way of explaining the ideas and clever use of diverse examples. I particularly like this book as a corrective to Gladwell's popular book "Blink" which introduces many of the same ideas but in a more biased way. The thing that makes this book so much better is that it doesn't use a cute spin to try to be original and provocative and socially relevant, he sticks to the science and as a result gets it closer to the truth I think. Lehrer doesn't at all downplay emotions in decision making, "rapid cognition," and so on, in fact he demonstrates their power. He just makes the very important point that we should rely on our non-conscious decision making feelings in some situations more than others. The more experience we have accumulated in an area, the more we should go with our gut. The less experience we have in an area, the more we should use formal techniques to help structure and guide the decision process. This isn't a magic bullet and it is probably fairly obvious to most people who have studied the subject and thought about it, so it won't catch on like the notion of the "miraculous power of the unconscious" periodically does, but it is very wise and well scientifically founded advice. If you read lots of decision science book like I do, you don't need this one also, but if you are looking for your first book on decision science, this could well be one of your best choices.

The brain has been the hot topic of a number of books lately from Buyology to Daniel Pink's work and others. These books, while helpful, do not engage or inform the reader the same way as Jonah Lehrer's book How We Decide. This book is a unique combination of brain science, popular culture and clear explanation that was a pleasure to read. Here is why: How We Decide starts from the premise that the traditional separation of reason from emotion is incomplete and in fact we are decisive because we connect both sides of our brain. Lehrer illustrates this idea with stories of people who have had to make quick decisions, build strong decision making skills or face tough choices. Those stories are then backed up by a review of the neuroscience that covers the structure of the brain to the functioning of dopamine, etc. Presented together the reader gets an understanding of what has happened and what is happening in the brain. Lehrer then builds on the emotions + reason = decision equation to talk about failure modes where emotions run amok and reason is the only way the person can think. These stories follow the same pattern as the opening discussion and provide greater insight into the way the brain works. Overall this book is a rare combination of science that is interesting and entertaining. I would almost go so far as to say that it would be a great Book Club recommendation for those clubs who want to discuss more than fiction. So a recommended read that opens the mind to how it thinks, while engaging your attention. The best book on the brain I have read in a long time -- at least I think so.

Lehrer takes aim squarely at Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, and, for my money, hits a home run. How We Decide is clearly and interestingly written, like Gladwell, but is more substantiated with recent neuroscience research. Lehrer's conclusion is also more nuanced, i.e., the best way to make a decision depends on different factors, and argues for the effectiveness and importance of monitoring our own thought process. This is one talented young man. I read Lehrer's first book about Proust and neuroscience, and while I was super impressed with his intellect, it required serious effort to read and understand. How We Decide is a lighter read, but just as original and significant in its own way.