The Intelligence Trap Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes

Smart people are not only just as prone to making mistakes as everyone else-they may be even more susceptible to them. This is the "intelligence trap," the subject of David Robson's fascinating and provocative debut. Packed with cutting-edge research, historical case studies, entertaining stories, and practical advice, The intelligence trap explores the flaws in our understanding of intelligence and expertise, and reveals the ways that even the brightest minds and talented organizations can backfire from some of Thomas Edison's worst ideas to failures at NASA, Nokia, and the FBI. With a knack for explaining complex ideas and featuring timeless lessons from Socrates to Benjamin Franklin to Richard Feynman and the latest behavioral science, Robson shows how to build a cognitive toolkit to avoid mistakes and protect ourselves from misinformation and fake news.

'A startling, provocative and potently useful book' Sunday Times What blinkered Einstein and Edison? Why did Steve Jobs and NASA make lethal errors of judgement? How might environmental disaster and social inequality be averted? It is time for us to learn a new way of thinking. The twenty-first century presents complex problems that require a wiser way of reasoning, one that recognises our current limitations, tolerates ambiguity and uncertainty, balances multiple perspectives, and bridges diverse areas of expertise. Whatever our age and experience, whether a NASA scientist or a school student, we will benefit from wielding our minds with insight, precision, social sensitivity and humility. In an exhilarating journey through current research, drawing on insight from Socrates to Benjamin Franklin and some of the world's most successful industries, award-winning science journalist David Robson shows how to build a cognitive toolkit to help us all maximise our full potential.

Critics of intelligence tests writers such as Robert Sternberg, Howard Gardner, and Daniel Goleman have argued in recent years that these tests neglect important qualities such as emotion, empathy, and interpersonal skills. However, such critiques imply that though intelligence tests may miss certain key noncognitive areas, they encompass most of what is important in the cognitive domain. In this book, Keith E. Stanovich challenges this widely held assumption.Stanovich shows that IQ tests (or their proxies, such as the SAT) are radically incomplete as measures of cognitive functioning. They fail to assess traits that most people associate with good thinking, skills such as judgment and decision making. Such cognitive skills are crucial to real-world behavior, affecting the way we plan, evaluate critical evidence, judge risks and probabilities, and make effective decisions. IQ tests fail to assess these skills of rational thought, even though they are measurable cognitive processes. Rational thought is just as important as intelligence, Stanovich argues, and it should be valued as highly as the abilities currently measured on intelligence tests.

Simple but powerful strategies for increasing your success by improving your thinking The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking presents practical, lively, and inspiring ways for you to become more successful through better thinking. The idea is simple: You can learn how to think far better by adopting specific strategies. Brilliant people aren't a special breed—they just use their minds differently. By using the straightforward and thought-provoking techniques in The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking, you will regularly find imaginative solutions to difficult challenges, and you will discover new ways of looking at your world and yourself—revealing previously hidden opportunities. The book offers real-life stories, explicit action items, and concrete methods that allow you to attain a deeper understanding of any issue, exploit the power of failure as a step toward success, develop a habit of creating probing questions, see the world of ideas as an ever-flowing stream of thought, and embrace the uplifting reality that we are all capable of change. No matter who you are, the practical mind-sets introduced in the book will empower you to realize any goal in a more creative, intelligent, and effective manner. Filled with engaging examples that unlock truths about thinking in every walk of life, The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking is written for all who want to reach their fullest potential—including students, parents, teachers, businesspeople, professionals, athletes, artists, leaders, and lifelong learners. Whenever you are stuck, need a new idea, or want to learn and grow, The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking will inspire and guide you on your way.

A “startling, provocative and potently useful” (James McConnachie, Times UK) examination of the stupid things intelligent people do. The Intelligence Trap explores cutting-edge ideas in our understanding of intelligence and expertise, including “motivated reasoning,” “meta-forgetfulness,” and “functional stupidity.” David Robson reveals the surprising ways that even the brightest minds and most talented organizations can go wrong?from some of Thomas Edison’s worst ideas to failures at NASA—while offering practical advice to avoid mistakes based on the timeless lessons of Benjamin Franklin, Richard Feynman, and Daniel Kahneman.

“Ed Hess's Hyper-Learning is uniquely practical and is the essential starting point for charting new ways of thinking, living, working, leading, and being fulfilled in our new world.” —Gary Roughead, Admiral, US Navy (retired) former Chief of Naval Operations The Digital Age will raise the question of how we humans will stay relevant in the workplace. To stay relevant, we have to be able to excel cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally in ways that technology can't. Professor Ed Hess believes that requires us to become Hyper-Learners: continuously learning, unlearning, and relearning at the speed of change. To do that, we have to overcome our reflexive ways of being: seeking confirmation of what we believe, emotionally defending our beliefs and our ego, and seeking cohesiveness of our mental models. Hyper-Learning requires a new way of being and a radical new way of working. In Part 1 of this how-to book, Hess takes a practical workbook approach and helps readers create their Hyper-Learning Mindset, choose and embrace their needed Hyper-Learning Behaviors, and adopt their daily Hyper-Learning Practices. In Part 2, Hess focuses on how to humanize the workplace to optimize Hyper-Learning. Featuring case studies of three business leaders and two public companies, this book shows how to harness the power of human emotions, choices, and behaviors to enable the highest levels of human cognitive, emotional, and behavioral performance—individually and organizationally.

A vision for building a society that looks beyond money and toward maximizing the values that make life worth living, from the cofounder of Kickstarter. Western society is trapped by three assumptions: 1) That the point of life is to maximize your self-interest and wealth, 2) That we're individuals trapped in an adversarial world, and 3) That this is natural and inevitable. These ideas separate us, keep us powerless, and limit our imagination for the future. It's time we replace them with something new. This Could Be Our Future is about how we got here, and how we change course. While the pursuit of wealth has produced innovation and prosperity, it also established an implicit belief that the right choice in every decision is whichever option makes the most money. The answer isn't to get rid of money; it's to expand our concept of value. By assigning rational value to other values besides money--things like community, purpose, and sustainability--we can refocus our energies to build a society that's generous, fair, and ready for the future. By recalibrating our definition of value, a world of scarcity can become a world of abundance. Hopeful but firmly grounded, full of concrete solutions and bursting with creativity, This Could Be Our Future brilliantly dissects the world we live in and shows us a road map to the world we are capable of making.

“This one’s worth reading. Trust me.” —Daniel Gilbert, PhD, bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness Issues of trust come attached to almost every human interaction, yet few people realize how powerfully their ability to determine trustworthiness predicts future success. David DeSteno’s cutting-edge research on reading trust cues with humanoid robots has already excited widespread media interest. In The Truth About Trust, the renowned psychologist shares his findings and debunks numerous popular beliefs, including Paul Zak’s theory that oxytocin is the “moral molecule.” From education and business to romance and dieting, DeSteno’s fascinating, paradigm-shifting book offers new insights and practical takeaways that will forever change how readers understand, communicate, and make decisions in every area of life.