What do You Like?

Michael Lewis has intrigued us with compelling ideas for a long time. His latest book, “The Undoing Project,” has gotten great reviews. It’s a great read.

But while the reviews have captured a great deal about the book, David Brooks’ recent piece in the New York Times has focused on the work of the book’s subjects, Kahneman and Tversky, and has gotten to the essence of what the book is all about, how we choose what we like. Here’s part of what he said:

“While most economics models assumed people were basically rational, Kahneman and Tversky demonstrated that human decision-making is biased in systematic, predictable ways. Many of the biases they described have now become famous — loss aversion, endowment effect, hindsight bias, the anchoring effect, and were described in Kahneman’s brilliant book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” They are true giants who have revolutionized how we think about decision-making. Lewis makes academic life seem gripping, which believe it or not, is not easy to do.”

“We don’t decide about life; we’re captured by life. In the major spheres, decision-making, when it happens at all, is downstream from curiosity and engagement. If we really want to understand and shape behavior, maybe we should look less at decision-making and more at curiosity. Why are you interested in the things you are interested in? Why are some people zealously seized, manically attentive and compulsively engaged?”

Want to deep-dive into how you decide? You can read the full article here.