Reader's Guide

1. Take the "rational agent" quiz on pages 21-22 (or test a friend). What choices did you pick? Are you risk-averse or risk-seeking? What are some other times in your life when you've tested your feelings toward risk?

2. Compare Hume's idea of moral decision making (benevolence) with Kant's idea (universality). What are the arguments of each? Which do you most agree with, and why?

3. Think of a time you succumbed to "belief bias" (p. 92). What was the logical reasoning that you overlooked? How did it affect your decision-making?

4. Think of a problem you've been trying to solve in your own life. What strategies from this book might be the most helpful to think about when solving it?

5. Describe an analogy that you have heard in the news. What was it trying to help you understand? Was it persuasive? Why or why not?

6. Now that you know the ways experts use to make decisions, can you think of a way your own thinking will change?

7. What are some areas in which using these strategies would not be helpful? Why not?

8. When the way our brains are wired to disagree with standard treatments of rational choice, it's usually considered an "error." Do you think we should try to counterbalance the way we think? How can we use our built-in logic for the better?