Different Ways of Thinking
October 21, 2015 6:33 PM

Are there books that explore different schemas or ways to make decisions?

I've gotten very interested in the different ways or processes to make decisions. I recently got a book called "The Decision Book". It's a pretty good book to outline some surface processes, but I'd like something more in-depth.
posted by reenum to Grab Bag (11 answers total) 33 users marked this as a favorite
Thinking fast and slow sounds right up your alley.
posted by smoke at 6:49 PM on October 21, 2015


Six Thinking Hats by Edward deBono is another good one.
posted by jeoc at 7:07 PM on October 21, 2015


Wait, are you interested in:

A) How to organize groups of people to make effective decisions, often in a business or government setting;

B) How groups of people have historically made decisions, and how events and information affect that;

C) Strategies for improving various decisions that you, as an individual, make in your life; or

D) The various factors and thinking processes that subtly affect how people _actually_ make decisions, and that sometimes cause them to make decisions that aren't objectively the best -- and how to compensate for them to improve your or others' decisions?
posted by amtho at 7:14 PM on October 21, 2015


Hi amtho,

Great question!

I am more interested in C and D in the list above.
posted by reenum at 7:21 PM on October 21, 2015


Farnam Street does a great job for this: Books on Decision Making.
posted by rippersid at 7:40 PM on October 21, 2015


Add to that list Maria Konnikova's Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, though its scope is wider than decision-making per se.
posted by Creosote at 7:53 PM on October 21, 2015


behavioral economics
posted by kinoeye at 8:23 PM on October 21, 2015


Bette Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. It's all about how people form habits. There was a section I found interesting that classified people based on how they follow rules, e.g. people who need external validation in order to comply, people who only comply if they agree with the rule and so on.
posted by JoannaC at 8:29 PM on October 21, 2015


Influence the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdani covers D, because it is about the factors that influence us and cause us to short cut our decision making process. If you have read about them, you can compensate, to some extent.
posted by Elysum at 12:27 AM on October 22, 2015


For D I would recommend Sources of Power by Gary Klein which is fairly in-depth about expert decision making and how people access their unconscious knowledge, and How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer which is a bit more of a popular treatment of decision making in general. Also +1 for Thinking Fast and Slow - that is a fantastic book.
posted by crocomancer at 2:18 AM on October 22, 2015


something something lateral thinking
posted by Napoleonic Terrier at 6:00 PM on October 22, 2015


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