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'Every once in a while, a book comes along that forces us to re-examine what we know and how we know it. This is one of those books.' Dan Ariely, New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational
Product Description
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? Why did Facebook succeed when other social networking sites failed? Did the surge in Iraq really lead to less violence? And does higher pay incentivize people to work harder? If you think the answers to these questions are a matter of common sense, think again. As sociologist and network science pioneer Duncan Watts explains in this provocative book, the explanations that we give for the outcomes that we observe in life-explanations that seem obvious once we know the answer-are less useful than they seem. Watts shows how commonsense reasoning and history conspire to mislead us into thinking that we understand more about the world of human behavior than we do; and in turn, why attempts to predict, manage, or manipulate social and economic systems so often go awry. Only by understanding how and when common sense fails can we improve how we plan for the future, as well as understand the present-an argument that has important implications in politics, business, marketing, and even everyday life.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Brief Review
Buy this book for an easy-to-read and solidly researched guide into how human beings think and make decisions. Do not, however, expect to discover much substance on how to correct or manage these cognitive flaws.
Longer Review
Duncan Watts has written an important book that should be read by managers, politicians and leaders of every kind. Although it won't be because these are just the sort of people who DON'T think they need this sort of help!
The key message I took away was that 'common sense' (Watts describes what this can be thought of) is useful in our everyday lives. However, despite the value we place on it, our simple, intuitive understanding of the world is simply not good enough when it comes to explaining the past, understanding the present or planning for the future. Or, in other words, we should not reply upon our simplistic mental models to explain the world.
Thus, the world is far more complex than our brains can comprehend.
Whilst this might sound obvious, Watts demonstrates time and time again how people and organisations have relied on pretty flaky thinking in a wide variety of settings. And whilst I'd read about many of these type of cognitive failings before, it was enjoyable to read Watt's take upon them.
The difficulty for us - including you and me dear reader - is that, even though we may know about these cognitive failings, we are still going to suffer from them. This is the way our brains, all of our brains, are wired. This is how we think and decide. Indeed, the cognitive failings Watts describes are a bit like those A-level Psychology optical illusions you're probably familiar with. Even though you know you're looking at an optical illusion, you still suffer from the illusion despite yourself!
Thus, as Watt's points out, we need to be very self-aware and understand how we and everyone else actually thinks. Which is why, I guess, I found Watt's book a little lacking.
I was hoping that his book would provide more of a solid framework for circumventing our intellectual weaknesses. To be fair, he does give some brief suggestions on how to test ideas in a more scientific manner (which is what his book is all about). Unfortunately for me, this latter part of the book is very light on detail and paints a picture of how to do this with very broad brush strokes.
So, in conclusion, I'm glad I read this book. I got a lot out of it and can recommend it to you.
I did think, however, that it was more of a 'How To' book than it actually is. Which should have been, I guess, obvious...
Buy this book for an easy-to-read and solidly researched guide into how human beings think and make decisions. Do not, however, expect to discover much substance on how to correct or manage these cognitive flaws.
Longer Review
Duncan Watts has written an important book that should be read by managers, politicians and leaders of every kind. Although it won't be because these are just the sort of people who DON'T think they need this sort of help!
The key message I took away was that 'common sense' (Watts describes what this can be thought of) is useful in our everyday lives. However, despite the value we place on it, our simple, intuitive understanding of the world is simply not good enough when it comes to explaining the past, understanding the present or planning for the future. Or, in other words, we should not reply upon our simplistic mental models to explain the world.
Thus, the world is far more complex than our brains can comprehend.
Whilst this might sound obvious, Watts demonstrates time and time again how people and organisations have relied on pretty flaky thinking in a wide variety of settings. And whilst I'd read about many of these type of cognitive failings before, it was enjoyable to read Watt's take upon them.
The difficulty for us - including you and me dear reader - is that, even though we may know about these cognitive failings, we are still going to suffer from them. This is the way our brains, all of our brains, are wired. This is how we think and decide. Indeed, the cognitive failings Watts describes are a bit like those A-level Psychology optical illusions you're probably familiar with. Even though you know you're looking at an optical illusion, you still suffer from the illusion despite yourself!
Thus, as Watt's points out, we need to be very self-aware and understand how we and everyone else actually thinks. Which is why, I guess, I found Watt's book a little lacking.
I was hoping that his book would provide more of a solid framework for circumventing our intellectual weaknesses. To be fair, he does give some brief suggestions on how to test ideas in a more scientific manner (which is what his book is all about). Unfortunately for me, this latter part of the book is very light on detail and paints a picture of how to do this with very broad brush strokes.
So, in conclusion, I'm glad I read this book. I got a lot out of it and can recommend it to you.
I did think, however, that it was more of a 'How To' book than it actually is. Which should have been, I guess, obvious...
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Guess it reflects the zeitgeist that (a) it's even necessary to write a defence of doing social science, and that the term 'science' can be properly applied to the study of social phenomena and (b) that this gets written by someone from Yahoo! research. Who even knew that Yahoo! had a social science research department. Every so often Watts lets the cat out of the bag by referring to 'social and marketing' scientists, but this is a decent book nonetheless.
It explains well why social science is worth doing, and why it's not the same as physics. It presents some useful insights into what we can actually learn from sociology - the book is worth reading for the discussion of the 'obvious' conclusions of the American Soldier study. It's mainly liberal in both senses of the word - a wide ranging survey from a human-centred perspective that is concerned with fairness in the egalitarian sense. Some hopeful insights into homophily (why we hang out with people like ourselves). Some good stuff about how intuition and 'automatic thinking' can be misleading.
If I have a big disagreement it's with his faith in the web, and social networking, as a research tool. His closing words are: "Merton was right: Social Science still has not found its Kepler. But three hundred years after Alexander Pope argued that the proper study of mankind should lie not in the heavens but in ourselves, we have finally found our telescope." This is kind of moving, but I don't think it's right. Research on the web is interesting and can point to lots of interesting phenomena, but it's not the same as studying humanity. It's not just a matter of sample bias (not everyone uses the web, or uses it in the same way) but also ignores the very real possibility that the way we interact on the web is not at all like we act in other aspects of life.
A good book and well worth reading all the same. Made me think a lot about my own work as an industry analyst, and about the way in which the company where I work manages its people.
It explains well why social science is worth doing, and why it's not the same as physics. It presents some useful insights into what we can actually learn from sociology - the book is worth reading for the discussion of the 'obvious' conclusions of the American Soldier study. It's mainly liberal in both senses of the word - a wide ranging survey from a human-centred perspective that is concerned with fairness in the egalitarian sense. Some hopeful insights into homophily (why we hang out with people like ourselves). Some good stuff about how intuition and 'automatic thinking' can be misleading.
If I have a big disagreement it's with his faith in the web, and social networking, as a research tool. His closing words are: "Merton was right: Social Science still has not found its Kepler. But three hundred years after Alexander Pope argued that the proper study of mankind should lie not in the heavens but in ourselves, we have finally found our telescope." This is kind of moving, but I don't think it's right. Research on the web is interesting and can point to lots of interesting phenomena, but it's not the same as studying humanity. It's not just a matter of sample bias (not everyone uses the web, or uses it in the same way) but also ignores the very real possibility that the way we interact on the web is not at all like we act in other aspects of life.
A good book and well worth reading all the same. Made me think a lot about my own work as an industry analyst, and about the way in which the company where I work manages its people.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Duncan Watts is a physicist-turned-sociologist currently employed by Yahoo, with a particular interest in the sociology of social interactions and networks. 'Everything Is Obvious' deals with the phenomenon of common sense understanding: how it functions as the default model by which we understand the world; how often it lets us down; how misleading it can be when applied in realms to which it offers only the appearance of insight.
In his professional life, Watts has been able to take advantage of the internet's ability to provide access to large pre-existing virtual communities, and comprehensive data concerning their interactions in real time, to conduct previously impractical experiments. The results have interesting things to say not just about the new social media but about human interaction in general and our inveterate habits of mind.
Watts' background in the physical sciences gives him an unusually keen appreciation of the criticisms frequently levelled at the social sciences - that they are not truly scientific, or 'rigorous', produce no general laws, and often seem to labour to produce results that common sense would have suggested anyway. In the light of these concerns he addresses the nature of what we call 'common sense' and exposes its peculiar blindnesses - its vulnerability to the 'halo effect', its persistent habit of retrospective rationalisation, its sheer inapplicability to scenarios that cannot be repeated and so do not yield to experience, its predictive failures - and in the process defends his discipline from misunderstandings rooted in a 'common-sense' - but unfair - understanding of its scope and abilities.
En route, Watts complicates a number of fashionable recent ideas concerning social relationships in our heavily mediated world; examining, for example, the question of how some YouTube videos 'go viral', and whether such phenomena really owe everything to the existence of 'super-influencers'. Once we enter this evidence-driven world, it's hard to go back to the world of common sense; but we gain a deeper appreciation of just how hard human beings work to maintain a sense of order and purpose in the face of our near-constant state of uncertainty and almost total inability to predict complex future events. This is a book that should appeal to anyone interested in social media, human networks and the implications of the ways in which we think for decision-making.
270 pages of text plus full notes, bibliography and index.
In his professional life, Watts has been able to take advantage of the internet's ability to provide access to large pre-existing virtual communities, and comprehensive data concerning their interactions in real time, to conduct previously impractical experiments. The results have interesting things to say not just about the new social media but about human interaction in general and our inveterate habits of mind.
Watts' background in the physical sciences gives him an unusually keen appreciation of the criticisms frequently levelled at the social sciences - that they are not truly scientific, or 'rigorous', produce no general laws, and often seem to labour to produce results that common sense would have suggested anyway. In the light of these concerns he addresses the nature of what we call 'common sense' and exposes its peculiar blindnesses - its vulnerability to the 'halo effect', its persistent habit of retrospective rationalisation, its sheer inapplicability to scenarios that cannot be repeated and so do not yield to experience, its predictive failures - and in the process defends his discipline from misunderstandings rooted in a 'common-sense' - but unfair - understanding of its scope and abilities.
En route, Watts complicates a number of fashionable recent ideas concerning social relationships in our heavily mediated world; examining, for example, the question of how some YouTube videos 'go viral', and whether such phenomena really owe everything to the existence of 'super-influencers'. Once we enter this evidence-driven world, it's hard to go back to the world of common sense; but we gain a deeper appreciation of just how hard human beings work to maintain a sense of order and purpose in the face of our near-constant state of uncertainty and almost total inability to predict complex future events. This is a book that should appeal to anyone interested in social media, human networks and the implications of the ways in which we think for decision-making.
270 pages of text plus full notes, bibliography and index.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
An excellent contribution
Cautions to other readers first (some prompted by previous reviews), although personally I've given it 5. Read more
Published 2 months ago by StephenSyncresis
Complex book
The product description of this book is somewhat misleading. I thought it would explain many of the current events with a clear logic behind them like why Monalisa is so famous or... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mobi
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