Good Thinking: Seven Powerful Ideas That Influence the Way We Think

by Denise Cummins

Good Thinking picks up where Thinking Fast and Slow (Kahneman, 2011) left off by showing how slow deliberation and fast intuitions underlie some of the greatest insights that changed the world.

Seven Powerful Ideas That Changed the World
1. Thinking can be automated so machines can do it, and insight is just subconscious thought.
2. You understand something best when you realize that "this is like that".
3. Some facts entail others, some don't.
4. To find out what's true, you should try to find out what's false.
5. To decide what causes what, you need to think of alternatives.
6. Making smart choices means figuring out what is mostly likely to get you what you most want--and realizing everyone else is doing the same thing.
7. Doing the right thing means doing what's best for everyone--while not crossing certain important lines.

After reading this book, you will know how the best and the brightest thinkers decide, argue, solve problems, and tell right from wrong.

Answers to insight quiz available at www.goodthinkingbooks.com

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Self Help

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2012

About the author

Picture

Dr. Denise Dellarosa Cummins is research psychologist and author. She has held faculty and research positions at Yale University, the University of California, the University of Illinois, and the Center for Adaptive Behavior at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin. Her research interest is how people think and decide. She is a respected cognitive scientist who has authored numerous scientific articles, and is an elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. She also gives invited talks about her research at universities and popular venues all over the world. In her Psychology Today blog, she writes about what she and other cognitive scientists are discovering about the way people think, solve problems, and make decisions.

In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and daughters hiking, horseback riding, and just generally hanging out.

My professional homepage can be found at http://www.denisecummins.com

Reviews

[Said AlMaskery · Rating 4 out of 5]

While reading the book I kept wondering; where are we heading?

The book was interesting, mind activating, and useful in understanding certain biases and how the mind works. It was full of scientific concepts related to how we make choice or think, morals and logic, causality and hypothesis testing, and problem solving and analogical reasoning.

But again, the question that was persistent was; where is the conclusion? Why as a reader I am bombarded with all this information? I finally found the answer in the fact that this book was more like a dictionary. Its purpose is to explain terminologies and concepts related to human behavior with the objective of making the reader aware of where science has reached in this domain.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and despite it took me some time to read it (it requires a clear mind!), I will probably go back to it again some time to grasp the powerful concepts presented.

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do we think? Or to ask a slightly different question, how do we know? If you take the IB/TOK jokes literally, the answer will be "we don't". But apart from deconstructing the various ways of thinking, I'm still not quite sure how our minds work. So tada! Good Thinking to the rescue. It's suppose to integrate the various types of thinking taught across the different disciplines - rational choice, game theory, morality, logic, causality and hypothesis testing.

Looking at the bibliography at the back, I get the sense that I'm reading the condensed version of many many studies. And being the lazy person I am, that makes me very happy. Plus, when I read official stuff (like annual reports), I have a tendency to zone out. But, this book is written in an engaging and easy to understand style, so there are no problems.

Now that I've mentioned the good things, there are some problems I have. One is the inherent evolutionist view that the book contains. In one section, the book discusses why we cooperate and goes into this explanation about kin selection. But I think it'd be because we are created, which kind of nullifies the "evolution-teaches-us-to-look-out-for-ourselves-only" problem.

The other problem was when they talked about Copernicus and "the Biblical view of the position and status of the earth as the centre of the universe."Um, no. Galileo was "fighting against" the contemporary views of the earth which was influenced by Aristotelian philosophy, not the Bible (there's a really good article here). You could say that it was the position of the Church, but it's not a Biblical view at all.

But overall, the book is excellent. Let me end by listing some of funniest analogies from high school students (incidentally, the book ends with this too):

"17. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

18. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35mph"

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this ebook from NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

(First posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile)

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Good Thinking" is, in and of itself, a puzzle logic book. It's not quite what I was expecting coming into it, considering I thought it would be more theory based and cover the topics within with a little more grounding, but it's more of an exploration into different aspects of thought, and then matching theory with some measures of analytic puzzles that occur in real world situations.

The book breaks down the dimensions of thinking in several categories: Rational Choice, Game Theory, Moral Judgement, Scientific Reasoning, Logic, Problem Solving, and Analogical Reasoning. All of them are excellent dimensions to consider, especially when thinking across different disciplines and bringing them together to analyze the best methodology in approaching them.

However, while the theories in this book are all quite sound and the author makes some interesting points with respect to the logic within each of the aspects covered, I wasn't as enamored with it as I thought I would be. The examples were from a variety of disciplines, but at the same time, I thought it might delve a little more into the theories and conceptual basis of each dimension. I thought perhaps there would be a little more organization with respect to the disciplines approached (some were real world/casual, others were medical, etc.)

I think it's a good book if people like brain/mind teasers in a variety of different approaches, but it's not the most comprehensive on the subject I've come across. I would say that if you're just getting into logical reasoning books, there are others that could probably provide a better introduction than this does. But for those who are familiar with the genre, and want an interesting read in the discipline, this isn't a bad book to check into. It's at least worth the read to gain insight on each of the dimensions Cummins addresses.

Overall score: 3/5

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher Cambridge University Press.

[Sekaie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book explores recurring cognitive tools that have shaped human progress in science and mathematics. These tools include game theory, morality, rationality, logic, causality, hypothesis testing, problem solving, and analogical thinking. As a Computer Science major, I've encountered these topics individually across various courses, so seeing them united in one text is fascinating.
The book illustrates how these cognitive tools enable us to make better decisions, solve complex problems, and navigate the ethical dilemmas we face through a mix of historical examples and contemporary science. Although the chapters are mostly standalone, the book offers a good look at the tools of human reasoning and their impact on our understanding of the world.
A conclusive chapter that synthesizes the ideas would have been great, but the book remains a good read anyways.

[Birkan · Rating 4 out of 5]

That book particularly shocked me about how Bayesian thinking applies to "X disease test is positive with 98% accuracy, yu might be X." situation and that could in reality translate into "You are X with 2% chance". I was also surprised to know that, actually punishing cheaters triggered reward stimuly in our brain where people go for punishing cheater by 1 token where they were also need to spend their token where people went up to 2 tokens. I initially got this book for problem solving part by reading "Turning what you dont want into what you want" phrase yet this phrase is almost unrelated with the chapter so didnt get what i expected yet this was really nice reading.

[Clare]

The results of extensive statistical study of the internal and external scientific factors that influence our choices. More technical and academic than a self-help guide, its perspective on human freedom and decision making would be best reviewed by someone who has studied behavioural psychology as well as moral philosophy, because the author includes detailed explanations of different philosophical approaches.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book to be average in every way. There was a few interesting paragraphs i did enjoy, but most of the information is nothing new.

In the second to last chapter there was a number of some fun brain puzzles but with no answers? What's the point?

I would recommend this book to someone who has never read a book on logic or psychology.

[Umberto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall very good and interesting. Gets bogged down in the little details sometimes but for the most part is very well written and enticing. Confirmed that all the math i have taken for my college major was not a complete waste. It gets bogged down in science and reads like a research journal some times but for the most part is quite good and will help most people improve their thinking.

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book about logical reasoning and it has left me with a good feeling and the sensation that something in my way of thinking had changed.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS FOR THE PREVIEW

[Greatreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great book that offers an engaging and accessible introduction to how we think. A must have for anyone looking to gain a foothold for themselves in this topic.

[Tristan Gongsun · Rating 3 out of 5]

The introduction of this book sounds exciting. It's well-written but less in-depth than I expected, still a nice little prelude to the budding cognitive neuroscience.

[Renee Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

worth of multiple reading.

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very clear guide to logical thinking, easy to read and very helpful!