🎙️ Why We Make Bad Decisions - The Deeper Thinking Podcast

🎙️ Why We Make Bad Decisions

The Science of Cognitive Biases and the Illusion of Rationality

Human beings like to believe they are rational, but the evidence tells a different story. From Plato and Descartes to Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, we unravel how cognitive biases—deeply ingrained mental shortcuts—shape perception, influence choices, and mislead even the most intelligent minds. If biases evolved for survival, can we ever overcome them? Or is rationality an illusion?

The Psychology and Philosophy of Cognitive Bias

This episode traces decision-making errors through three key dimensions:

1. The Evolution of Bias – Why the Brain Takes Shortcuts

Our ancestors had to make life-or-death decisions quickly. Evolutionary psychology suggests that biases evolved as survival mechanisms. Leda Cosmides and John Tooby argue that while heuristics helped early humans, they now misfire in modern contexts. Could our biases be remnants of an outdated mental model?

2. The Consequences of Bias – How Mistakes Shape the World

Cognitive distortions do not just affect individuals—they shape politics, economics, and history. From confirmation bias fueling ideological divides to the sunk cost fallacy prolonging wars and failed investments, biases distort collective decision-making on a massive scale. Can societies overcome these built-in flaws?

3. Escaping Bias – Is True Rationality Possible?

Philosophers from Socrates to Karl Popper have argued that self-awareness and skepticism are the keys to clear thinking. But Kahneman warns that biases persist even when we know about them. Neuroscience shows that decision-making is deeply entangled with emotion and cognitive constraints. Can structured thinking, education, or even artificial intelligence help us transcend our mental limitations?

The Unavoidable Question: Do We Control Our Own Minds?

If biases are an unavoidable part of cognition, does that mean free will itself is compromised? Stoic philosophy urges detachment from cognitive distortions, while Nietzsche challenges us to embrace irrationality. In a world shaped by algorithms that exploit our biases, the question is no longer just about individual choices but about agency itself.

Why Listen?

🔹 Why do intelligent people still make irrational decisions?
🔹 How do biases shape memory, belief, and political choices?
🔹 Can we train our minds to overcome cognitive distortions?
🔹 Is true objectivity possible, or are we all trapped in mental illusions?

📚 Further Reading

📖 Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
🔹 A groundbreaking exploration of heuristics, biases, and the limits of rational thinking.

📖 Predictably Irrational – Dan Ariely
🔹 How hidden cognitive forces shape our seemingly logical decisions.

📖 The Black Swan – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
🔹 Why humans fail to predict rare, high-impact events due to cognitive bias.

📖 Nudge – Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein
🔹 How small interventions can counteract cognitive distortions in decision-making.

📖 Descartes’ Error – Antonio Damasio
🔹 The relationship between emotion, cognition, and decision-making.

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Final Thought

If rationality is an illusion, is self-awareness the only way out? Or are we forever trapped in the biases that define human thought?

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Foundational Works in Cognitive Bias & Behavioral Science

📖 Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
🔹 A groundbreaking exploration of heuristics, biases, and the limits of rational thinking.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
🔹 The foundational text that introduced the heuristics-and-biases model in psychology.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Ariely, Dan. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.
🔹 How cognitive biases distort seemingly rational decisions in daily life.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Thaler, Richard H., and Cass R. Sunstein. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
🔹 Explores how small interventions can help counteract cognitive biases.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Gigerenzer, Gerd. Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious. New York: Viking, 2007.
🔹 Challenges Kahneman and Tversky’s perspective by defending heuristics as useful mental shortcuts.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

Decision-Making, Rationality, and the Evolution of Bias

📖 Cosmides, Leda, and John Tooby. The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
🔹 Explores how human cognition evolved for survival rather than logical precision.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Simon, Herbert A. Models of Man: Social and Rational. New York: Wiley, 1957.
🔹 Introduces the concept of "bounded rationality" and how human decision-making deviates from optimization.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Slovic, Paul. The Perception of Risk. London: Earthscan, 2000.
🔹 How biases affect risk perception and decision-making in high-stakes environments.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House, 2007.
🔹 Why humans fail to predict rare, high-impact events due to cognitive biases.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Damasio, Antonio. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Putnam, 1994.
🔹 Argues that rationality is deeply intertwined with emotions, challenging the classical view of logic-driven decisions.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

Philosophical Perspectives on Rationality and Bias

📖 Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson, 1959.
🔹 A foundational text arguing that falsifiability, rather than confirmation, is the key to knowledge.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage, 1974.
🔹 Challenges the idea of objective truth and explores the limits of human knowledge.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. London: John W. Parker and Son, 1859.
🔹 Advocates for intellectual humility and the necessity of engaging with opposing views.
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📖 Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945.
🔹 Examines how different philosophical traditions have understood reason and decision-making.
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📖 Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Translated by Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Washington Square Press, 1956.
🔹 Explores existential decision-making and how self-deception shapes perception.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

Technology, AI, and Bias in the Digital Age

📖 Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. New York: Penguin, 2011.
🔹 Explores how algorithms reinforce biases by curating our online environments.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Floridi, Luciano. The Ethics of Information. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
🔹 Examines how digital information influences human cognition and ethical decision-making.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Tegmark, Max. Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017.
🔹 Explores how AI might reshape decision-making and rationality on a global scale.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Suleyman, Mustafa. The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and the Next Great Disruption. New York: Crown Publishing, 2023.
🔹 From the co-founder of DeepMind, an exploration of AI’s inevitable disruption of human decision-making.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link