BOOKS
BOOK OF THE MONTH – COMMON KNOWLEDGE by Stephen Pinker
Harvard University Professor Stephen Pinker is perhaps the world’s best-known psychologist and cognitive scientist. He has made a career in explaining the acquisition of knowledge. His latest book on ‘common knowledge’ is valuable in explaining the decline in universal rational norms and the power of social bubbles. It offers essential ideas on how to navigate a dramatically-changed social ecosystem.
Ariely, Dan. The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home. (Harper, 2010)
Behavioural economist explains how emotional and social norms can adversely affect our decision-making.
Doctorow, Cory. Enshittification :Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It (Harper, 2010)
Systemic reasons why tech innovations stop delivering value and start causing problems.
Grant, Adam Think Again (WH Allen, 2023)
The power of knowing what you don’t know.
Hallsworth, Michael, Kirkman, Elspeth. Behavioral Insights (MIT Press, 2020)
Strong introduction to the impact of human instinct and behaviours on decision-making.
Kahneman, Daniel Thinking, Fast and Slow (Penguin, 2012)
Behavioural science classic: how we think, rationalise and choose.
Muller, Jerry Z The Tyranny of Metrics (Princeton University Press, 2019)
Why quantifying human performance can do more harm than good.
Pinker, Steven, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters (Penguin, 2021)
How and why disinformation and irrational ideas have permeated society at a time of rational scientific progress.
Shotton, Richard The Illusion of Choice (Harriman House, 2023)
The psychology of buying and choice perception – and how they customers are unconsciously guided and manipulated.
Shotton, Richard The Choice Factory (Harriman House, 2023)
A behavioural science view of marketing, explaining biases and choice perception, based on 25 case studies.
Sunstein, Cass R How Change Happens (W.F Howes, 2019)
How the status quo and even entrenched norms can fail in periods of change
Sunstein, Cass R , Thaler, Richard H Nidge (Yale University Press, 2008, updated 2022)
Prescient and still relevant book on our motivations for decisions.
Thaler, Richard H. Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics. (W.W. Norton & Company, 2015)
FEW WORDS have been so roundly abused as ‘ecosystem.’