I didn’t see any value in learning psychology until I was in my thirties. Growing up in India and with the conventional values of going after science and math, I didn’t see much use in learning psychology.
I got interested in the subject when I listened to Charlie Munger’s speech, ”The Psychology Of Human Misjudgment”. If you haven’t seen this, please spend your next hour watching this, and you will thank me later. Charlie Munger, in this video, talks about how organizations and leaders make mistakes because of several self serving biases. Two books to understand these psychological biases are “Influence” and “Thinking Fast and Slow”.
Impressed by the video, I started with my education. I read several psychology books. This education changed the way I started seeing the world. I understood how most of the decisions I made till this time were just the biological response vs. a clear thinking.
I will give you just one example to show how we are manipulated psychologically on an everyday basis.
Pavlov coined the word Pavlovian association when he experimented with his dog by giving the dog food and ringing a bell. After repeating this process a couple of times, he just rang the bell and didn’t give the food, and still the dog’s mouth was salivating. We see this example working out in our lives every day. For example, we all have a pavlovian association with the color red. When we see the color red, we feel festivities and good food. Just look around and see how many food and beverage companies use the color red as a bell for you.
This is just one example; there are several such associations playing out in the real world that we just don’t think about.
I would list some of my favorite psychology books for anyone interested.
Influence by Robert Cialdini
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
Nudge by Richard H. Thaler
Quiet by Susan Cain
Leave a Reply