I Blinked and Got Nudged Into a Blunder

Blame Malcolm Gladwell. His 2005 bestseller "Blink" has inspired a host of imitators, including these four in the last year alone. So how do you make a decision about which decision-making book to buy?

NEWSWEEK

Published Feb 14, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Feb 23, 2009

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How We Decide
By Jonah Lehrer

Bring it, Gladwell! The most recent entry is a direct challenge to the New Yorker scribe's thesis: in fact, we don't really "blink" out decisions; we carefully weigh emotion and reason to make informed choices. Using advancements in neuroscience, Lehrer, 27, makes it all about us, imploring the reader to "know thyself," our emotional impulses and why exactly we do what we do.

Decision time: Use science and self-knowledge to steer straight.

Nudge
By Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

Two University of Chicago professors examine how the tiniest details affect decision making, and offer guidance on steering ourselves (and, more important, others) toward making better choices. They argue that social and civic policies could gently "nudge" people toward the option that's best for everyone.

Decision time: Save the planet, save yourself. Do-gooders, policymakers, this one's for you.

Blunder
By Zachary Shore

With a historian's approach, Shore takes the adage about learning from past mistakes and turns it on its head, arguing that Thomas Edison, George Orwell and George W. Bush screwed up for the same reasons you do. Why? Shore identifies seven "cognition traps" like "static cling" (refusing to accept changing circumstances) and "infomania" (obsessively gathering information). Decision time: Self-help for history buffs.

Predictably Irrational
By Dan Ariely

MIT behavioral scientist Ariely conducts wacky experiments (example: test subjects watch porn while completing a survey on a computer) to challenge the assumption that humans are basically rational beings—and to demonstrate that mistakes are systematic and, yes, predictable.

Decision time: If you want to know how our irrationality affects markets, try this empirical approach to the field. Also: look, an original book jacket!