Some of the most worrisome and disgusting aspects of contemporary culture (social media, anyone?) leave us often dumbfounded as to what kind of misanthropic mind could have cooked them up. On the surface, some of the most confounding behaviours seem to be completely antithetical to what a normal human ought to be.
Thankfully, science often has an explanation for some of these odd behaviours. Daniel Kahneman, an Economist and Psychologist well known for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, his 2002 Nobel prize in economics as well as his book "Thinking Fast and Slow", likely has an answer to our puzzle.
One such common occurrence, the "Availability Cascade", explains why certain kinds of collective beliefs, especially if they explain a complex phenomenon, can spread like wildfire in the popular consciousness, even if they are completely false. Such behaviours, for example, the spread of the anti-vaxx ideas are attributed to such a phenomenon, despite repeated debunking and the public disavowal of junk scientist Andrew Wakefield.
If you're curious to learn more about how the mind works when it comes to decision-making, Kahneman's book is for you. It's rife with fascinating knowledge and sometimes, frankly a bit out of reach for the uninitiated, but it's always entertaining and contains a lot of great stories illustrating Kahneman's research and theories.
The benefit for you to know more about the brain's inner workings is that it will give you tips, tricks and hacks to better understand how people make decisions and become a better negotiator, as well as develop a healthy skepticism of the latest fads.
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