Support Us
Five Books
 
Search
MENUMENU
  • Nonfiction
        • Art
          • Architecture
          • Art History
          • Design & Illustration
          • Fashion & Style
          • Modern and Contemporary Art
          • Photography
        • Business
          • How to Invest
          • Leadership
          • Marketing
        • Economics
          • Behavioural Economics
          • Development Economics
          • Economic History
          • Finance
          • Financial Crisis
          • Globalization Books
          • World Economies
        • Environmental Books
          • Climate Change Books
          • Environmental Ethics
        • Food & Cooking
          • The Best Cookbooks
          • Food & History of Food
          • Wine & Drinks
        • Health & Lifestyle
          • Death & Dying
          • Education
          • Family & Relationships
          • Happiness
          • Sex & Sexuality
        • History Books
          • American History
          • Ancient History (up to 500)
          • Modern History (1800-1945)
          • History of Science
          • Historical Figures
          • Military History
        • Language
          • Grammar & Punctuation
          • Books for Learning Languages
          • Linguistics
        • Law
        • Literary Nonfiction
          • Biography
          • Essays
          • Memoir
          • Artists' Biographies
          • Travel
          • True Crime
        • Music & Drama
          • Classical Music & Opera
          • Film & Cinema
          • Music
          • Theatre
        • Nature
          • Dinosaurs & the Prehistoric World
          • The Earth
          • Plants, Trees & Flowers
        • Philosophy Books
          • Ancient Philosophy
          • Ethics & Moral Philosophy
          • Great Philosophers
          • Social & Political Philosophy
        • Politics & Society
          • War
          • Feminism
          • Foreign Policy & International Relations
          • Human Rights
          • Terrorism
        • Psychology
          • Mental Health
          • Neuroscience
          • Psychoanalysis
          • Psychology Research
          • Self Help
        • Religion
          • Best Atheist Books
          • Buddhism
          • Christian
          • Islamic
          • Jewish
          • Religious History Books
        • Science
          • Astronomy
          • Biology
          • Chemistry
          • Geoscience
          • Maths & Statistics
          • Popular Science
          • Physics
        • Sports, Games & Hobbies
          • Football (Soccer)
          • Gardening
          • Hobbies
          • Sport & Sporting Culture
        • Technology
          • Artificial Intelligence
          • Computing
          • Digital Age
          • History of Technology
          • Internet
  • Fiction & Literature
        • Classic English Literature
        • American Literature
        • World Literature
        • Literary Criticism
        • Literary Figures
        • Classical Studies
        • Contemporary Fiction
          • NEW Fiction
        • Poetry
        • Memoir
        • Comics & Graphic Novels
        • Fairy Tales & Mythology
        • Historical Fiction
        • Horror
        • Humour
        • Crime Novels
        • Science Fiction
        • Short Stories
        • Romance
        • Thrillers
        • Mystery
        • Fantasy
  • World
        • Africa
          • Egypt
          • Ghana
          • Nigeria
          • Rwanda
          • South Africa
          • Zimbabwe
        • Americas
          • Latin America
            • Argentina
            • Brazil
            • Caribbean
            • Chile
            • Cuba
            • Mexico
          • United States
          • Canada
        • Arctic & Antarctica
        • Asia
          • Afghanistan
          • Bangladesh
          • Burma
          • China
          • India
          • Japan
          • Kazakhstan
          • Korea
          • Pakistan
          • Sri Lanka
          • Singapore
          • Vietnam
        • Australia
        • Europe
          • Belgium
          • Britain
          • France
          • Germany
          • Greece
          • Ireland
          • Italy
          • Netherlands
          • Norway
          • Spain
        • Middle East
          • Iran
          • Iraq
          • Israel
          • Syria
          • Turkey
          • Yemen
        • Russia & FSU
          • Azerbaijan
          • Georgia
          • Russia
          • Ukraine
  • Kids
        • Kids Recommend Books for Kids
        • High School Teachers Recommendations
        • Novels & Novelists
        • Ages Baby-2
        • Ages 3-5
        • Ages 6-8
        • Ages 9-12
        • Books for Teens and Young Adults
        • Best Kids Books of 2021
        • Best Books for Teens of 2021
        • Best Audiobooks for Kids
        • Prizewinning Kids' Books
        • Popular Series Books for Kids
        • History
        • Economics
        • Environment
        • Family
        • Science
        • Mental Health
  • Best Books 2021
        • Audiobooks
        • Nonfiction
          • Biography
          • Business
          • History
          • Cookbooks
          • Memoir
          • Philosophy
          • Art
          • Science
        • Fiction
          • Science Fiction
          • Fantasy
          • Historical Fiction
          • Mystery
          • Romance
          • Thrillers
        • Kids
        • Teens
  • New Books
        • New Science Books
        • New Climate Books
        • New Psychology Books
        • New Philosophy Books
        • New Math Books
        • New Economics Books
        • New History Books
        • New Physics Books
        • New Memoirs
        • New Biography
        • New Fiction
        • New World Literature
        • New Historical Fiction
  • Audiobooks
    • Actors Read Great Books
    • Best Audiobooks for Kids
    • Books Narrated by Their Authors
    • Best Audiobook Thrillers
    • Best History Audiobooks
  • Book Awards
    • Booker Prize
    • Baillie Gifford Prize
    • Royal Society
    • Wolfson Prize
    • Walter Scott Prize
    • Arthur C Clarke Prize
    • Pushkin House Prize
    • Audie Awards
    • Nobel Prize
  • Experts

Economics

How We Know What Isn’t So by Thomas Gilovich
Buy now

How We Know What Isn’t So

by Thomas Gilovich

Recommendations from our site

“This is a book about intuitive human judgment and how the way we think about the world can be distorted and misdirected by forces within our own mind, like our tendency to think well of ourselves, by cognitive forces, such as the ease with which information comes to mind, and by environmental forces, like asymmetries in feedback. So, for instance, acts of commission, things that people do, come to mind more readily than acts of omission, things that people don’t do. So our judgments can be distorted by the presence of information, as opposed to its absence. And that can lead to systematic mistakes.How We Know What Isn’t So remains the best book in the field at describing the basic psychological mechanisms that can lead even super smart people to make mistakes.” Read more...

The best books on Behavioral Science

Nicholas Epley, Psychologist

“This is a really smart book and the reason I put it on there is that it really invented the genre of science non-fiction. Gilovich did some very interesting work (actually with Tversky when he was still at Cornell) including on the ‘hot hand’ effect. This refers to basketball when players think they have a ‘hot hand’. They make three shots in a row: fans think they’re in the zone. But actually the hot hand is a cognitive illusion. After making a couple of shots in a row, players actually get over-confident and become less likely to make their next shot. So the book is filled with case studies like that, clever demonstrations that so much of what we perceive in the world, and then use to act on, is actually based on cognitive illusions. So this book is very accessible. It was very popular and demonstrated for the first time that people love to learn about their biases. There’s really something fascinating about reading your own user manual and going, ‘Oh that’s what made me do that stupid thing all the time!’” Read more...

The best books on Decision-Making

Jonah Lehrer, Science Writer

Other books by Thomas Gilovich

Heuristics and Biases by Dale Griffin, Daniel Kahneman & Thomas Gilovich

Heuristics and Biases
by Dale Griffin, Daniel Kahneman & Thomas Gilovich

Our most recommended books

  • A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960
    by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz

  • The Big Short
    by Michael Lewis

  • The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
    by David S Landes

  • The Worldly Philosophers
    by Robert L Heilbroner

  • The Passions and the Interests
    by Albert Hirschman

  • wealth of nations

    The Wealth of Nations
    by Adam Smith

Support Five Books

Five Books interviews are expensive to produce, please support us by donating a small amount.

About

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

Newsletter Contact us Privacy Policy Terms of Service

© Five Books 2022