How We Know What Isn't So

Have you ever wondered how close your beliefs come to fact—or fiction? Learn how your assumptions can both help and deceive you in this guide to fallacy of the obvious in everyday life.
When can we trust what we believe, and when should we question our beliefs? Illustrating his points with examples and supporting them with the latest research findings, Thomas Gilovich documents the cognitive, social, and motivational processes that distort our thoughts, beliefs, judgments, and decisions. In a rapidly changing world, the biases and stereotypes that help us process an overload of complex information inevitably distort what we would like to believe is reality. Awareness of our propensity to make these systematic errors, Gilovich argues, is the first step to more effective analysis and action. Indeed, as he writes in the introduction, “Thinking straight about the world is a precious and difficult process that must be carefully nurtured.”