Friday Review — Michael Lewis’s The Undoing Project

Happy Friday. I’m making a point to review a book or some other work on Fridays. Alas, I don’t have anything new that I’m ready to review today. But I wanted to mention a book that I’m listening to in audio form. That book is the latest by Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project. Lewis discusses the collaboration between Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. The two researched the irrationality of the human mind. Lewis’s book is practically a prequel to Moneyball. From the New York Times review:

Their work revealed previously undiscovered patterns of human irrationality: the ways that our minds consistently fool us and the steps we can take, at least some of the time, to avoid being fooled. Kahneman and Tversky used the word “heuristics” to describe the rules of thumb that often lead people astray. One such rule is the “halo effect,” in which thinking about one positive attribute of a person or thing causes observers to perceive other strengths that aren’t really there. Another is “representativeness,” which leads people to see cause and effect — to see a “narrative” — where they should instead accept uncertainty or randomness.

I’m not very far into the Audible version of the book. And so far I like what I am reading. It appears to pair nicely with Robert Chialdini’s Pre-Suasion.

I’ll keep you posted. If anyone else is reading it and wants to discuss, please drop me a line.