Psychology

Why You’re Not as Rational as You Think

10 min read

And Never Will Be You think you make decisions based on logic and evidence. You evaluate information objectively. You weigh pros and cons rationally. You’re not swayed by emotion like other people. You’re a rational actor making rational choices. This self-assessment is almost certainly wrong. You’re running on emotion, bias, and mental shortcuts while maintaining the illusion that you’re being logical. Your brain is excellent at generating rational-sounding justifications for decisions you’ve already made emotionally. The evidence for human irrationality is overwhelming and consistent. We violate basic rules of logic constantly. We make contradictory choices depending on how questions are...

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