A review of Richard Nisbett’s ‘Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking’
by James Forr
The National Weather Service began naming hurricanes in the 1950s. A widely acclaimed study published in 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that hurricanes with female names are three times as deadly as those with male names. The authors posit that implicit sexist stereotypes of men as more dominant and women as more nurturing lull people into complacency when a “female” storm is looming.
But hold on. Prior to 1979, the Weather Service employed only female names. So, yes, storms have become less deadly over time. Is that because of the names? Or might it have something to do with advances in forecasting and warning systems?
The debate between the authors of the paper and their critics remains unresolved and perhaps unresolvable. But the unconscious variables on both sides of the argument — our implicit gender biases on one hand, our proclivity to overlook the flaws in a tidy narrative on the other — are examples of the vagaries of human thought that Richard Nisbett discusses in Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2015).
Nisbett is Distinguished Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Michigan and a giant in the field who made his name in the 1970s by examining the shortcomings of verbal reports on mental processes. In this book he again builds a strong case that we don’t have access to the inner workings of our mind any more than we have access to the inner workings of our lymph nodes or our pancreas.
One result of this blind spot is the significant effect of so-called incidental stimuli. Messages written in neat font are more persuasive than those scribbled sloppily. In a consumer study, people writing with an orange pen selected more orange products from a catalog than those writing with a green pen. Phrases that rhyme are more persuasive than virtually identical phrases that don’t. Our grip on our free will is disturbingly tenuous.
The unconscious mind also is a trickster that ensorcells us into all sorts of foolishness. Did you ever watch Jeopardy! and wonder how Alex Trebek got so brilliant? I have. But let’s stop and think about that for a minute — what exactly does Alex do? He makes insipid small talk with contestants and recites questions and answers off note cards. All that proves is that he is reasonably sociable and functionally literate. But maybe that’s all that is necessary. Nisbett cites research that shows that people who ask hard questions generally are judged more intelligent than those who answer them.
So although it isn’t easy for us to explain why we feel the way we feel and why we believe the things we behave, it is possible. But only, Nisbett explains, if we have a theory readily at hand. If I haven’t studied for a test, then I have a sound theory for why I feel anxious when the teacher hands out the exam. But most of us don’t have a theory that explains how the color of the walls affects our mood or how our level of hunger affects how we judge the merits of a job candidate.
Nisbett lays out how this lack of awareness makes us prey to all kinds of biases unless we explicitly learn how avoid them. For instance, we often fail to appreciate sunk costs. How often have you sat through a terrible movie, thinking, “I paid $12 for this ticket. I’m not going to leave.” The $12 is gone one way or the other. If you aren’t enjoying the movie, the logical thing to do is to walk out and do something better with your time.
But our biases nudge us toward positive decisions, too. If you want people to donate their organs or contribute to a 401K, just make those opt-out decisions rather than opt-in. Our status-quo bias (or laziness, in less highfalutin’ terms) will encourage us to let things be. If you run a hotel and want your guests to reuse towels, don’t browbeat them about the environment or try to make them feel guilty. Just tell them that most other guests reuse their towels; people tend to behave in ways that conform with social norms. Want to be even more persuasive? Tell them most guests who have stayed in this room have reused their towels.
Biases also affect us at a societal level. What passes for common sense is often just common nonsense. The widely acclaimed D.A.R.E. program actually doesn’t reduce substance abuse among teens — largely because police are not important social influencers. Programs that teach teens about resisting peer pressure and inform them about how many people actually abuse drugs and alcohol — a number much lower than most kids believe — are much more effective. After a traumatic event, traditional grief counseling, in which people sit around in groups and rehash the details of an event over and over, not only doesn’t reduce the prevalence of PTSD but also might increase it. The best approach is one seldom practiced — asking people to privately write down their thoughts and feelings about the event for four nights in a row. This apparently helps people develop a narrative and see a way forward. The best predictor of whether someone who has attempted suicide will try again? Not self-reports or physician judgments or traditional psychological tests, but instead the implicit association test.
Nisbett is a polished writer who explains complex concepts in clear language. However, keep in mind this is a sprawling book that covers acres of territory — from the unconscious mind, to the perils of multiple regression analysis, to the differences between Asian and Western ways of thinking. At times it feels like he is trying to cram 11 pounds of stuff into a 10-pound bag. Moreover, although Nisbett employs some novel examples and anecdotes, you won’t discover anything earth-shattering here if you have read much about brain science or behavioral economics in the past decade or so. Nonetheless, Nisbett provides enough things that make you go hmmmm to make Mindware a valuable read that might help you think a little more clearly about your world.
James Forr is a director at Olson Zaltman.
