Books by Thomas Gilovich

“This is another really good set of essays in a rapidly growing branch of intellectual enquiry called behavioural economics where they look at the irrationalities in the way that humans behave. I thought this was brilliant. One essay in particular on irrational optimism caught my eye. It’s the idea that individuals who have slightly inflated expectations of their own abilities tend to persevere longer and perform better. These top sportsmen when they perform under pressure – if they believe they are going to win they often will. This belief makes them more efficacious and the book is a really interesting look at that whole idea of positive thinking.” Read more...

The best books on Champions

Matthew Syed, Journalist

“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