One mind, two systems
In his award-winning 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman has popularised the ‘dual-systems’ theory of cognition, and we’ve found it a very useful concept for helping participants in our workplace training programmes to understand and manage their minds better. The central idea that we have two modes of cognitive thinking, an automatic, fast […]
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Predictably irrational?
Despite our image of ourselves as very rational people, our ability to make rational decisions can be affected by limitations in our thinking known as cognitive biases. These flaws in judgement, caused by common memory errors and miscalculations, can lead us to make questionable decisions without even realising why. Cognitive biases aren’t all bad though: […]
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Should you explain your decisions?
When we make decisions, we often spend time weighing up the pros and cons and thinking through the reasons for our choices. While this can make us feel like we are deciding carefully, findings from psychology studies suggest that this doesn’t always lead to making the best decisions. Wilson and colleagues carried out an experiment […]
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How to think like Sherlock Holmes
Most of us want to be smarter. The idea of being able to analyse situations more accurately, spot things others have missed, is appealing – like being a star detective. Maria Konnikova, author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, has been exploring how our minds make deductions and come to conclusions, and how […]
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