Many people still believe in the delusion that they act predominantly wisely and rationally. However, science and practical psychology have long come to the conclusion that human behavior is irrational and unreasonable in most life situations. It's not good or bad, it just is. I offer you a selection of authors and books that provide convincing arguments for the unreasonableness of Homo Sapiens.
1. Daniel Kahneman is a psychologist who received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. His scientific work has shown the failure of economic models that describe consumer behavior. Daniel convincingly shows that at least two decision-making systems coexist in the human mind. The first is fast and automatic, the second is slow, but smart. Guess which system works the most?
What to read: Daniel Kahneman Think Slowly... Decide Fast.
2. Robert Cialdini is a psychologist who studies compliance and is best known as the author of The Psychology of Influence. The first edition was published back in 1984 and has been constantly reprinted since then. All of Cialdini's books are easy to read and contain many compelling examples of automatic human responses that masters of influence constantly use to sell us something. According to the author, he publishes his works to help a wide range of readers learn to recognize situations when they act automatically and learn to resist the actions of manipulators.
What to read: Robert Cialdini "The Psychology of Influence" and other books by this author.
3. Tim Urban - came up with a fun and simple explanation for procrastination. Two characters "live" in a person's personality - a cheerful, carefree monkey and a rational little man. For many people, most of the time, a monkey is behind the human control panel. There are other characters in this story - a panic monster that comes along with the deadline.
What to read: and other articles by the author.
4. Neil Shubin is a paleontologist who wrote a wonderful book in which he draws parallels between the structure of man and prehistoric animals. Other authors who use the term "reptilian brain" sometimes refer to Neil, but from the point of view of Neil's work, it would be more correct to call the "reptilian" brain "fish".
Read: Neil Shubin, The Inner Fish. The history of the human body from ancient times to the present day.
5. Maxim Dorofeev is the author of a very interesting and practically useful book, Jedi Techniques. The book contains a description of human behavior patterns, generalizes and suggests methods for improving personal effectiveness. I think this book is a must-read for today's man.
Maxim Dorofeev Jedi Techniques.
Happy and useful reading!
Source: habr.com