Reading path
Understand Your Own Mind
Why you decide the way you do — the biases, shortcuts, and blind spots running quietly underneath.
You are far less rational than you feel, in ways that are predictable and well-mapped. Start with the foundation, then watch the patterns repeat.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
The foundation. Kahneman's two systems — fast intuition, slow reasoning — explain most of the errors the other books catalogue.
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
Ariely shows the irrationality isn't random; it's systematic and repeatable. Once you see the patterns you can't unsee them.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Cialdini's six levers of persuasion. Read it to understand how you're being moved — and to stop being moved without noticing.
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Small changes to how a choice is presented change what people pick. The architecture of a decision matters as much as the decision.
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Why reasonable people disagree so bitterly. Haidt: moral intuitions come first, and reasons show up afterward to justify them.