Further Reading — Chapter 4: Cognitive Biases

Annotated resources for deeper exploration. Items marked with ★ are especially recommended as starting points.

The Foundational Books

★ Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The definitive popular account of cognitive bias research by the Nobel laureate who did much of the foundational work. Part 1 covers the two-system model and heuristics; Part 2 covers heuristics and biases; Part 3 covers overconfidence; Part 4 covers prospect theory and choices. If you read one book because of this chapter, this is the one.

★ Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Yale University Press. The behavioral economics application of cognitive bias research to policy and institutional design. Highly practical — focuses on how default options, choice architecture, and social norms can be designed to support better decisions. The most accessible introduction to applied behavioral economics.

Lewis, M. (2016). The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds. W. W. Norton. The story of the Kahneman-Tversky collaboration told as narrative nonfiction by Michael Lewis. Beautifully written. Provides humanizing context for the research and illuminates how the work developed through conversation and disagreement. A joy to read.

Primary Sources

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47(2), 263–291. The foundational prospect theory paper. Dense and technical, but the core findings — loss aversion, the value function, probability weighting — are described clearly in the original. Worth reading the introduction and main findings even if the mathematical derivation exceeds your tolerance.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124–1131. The original paper naming the three heuristics — representativeness, availability, anchoring — and the biases they produce. A landmark in 20th-century social science. Accessible and still well worth reading.

Dunning, D., & Kruger, J. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134. The original Dunning-Kruger paper. Note that the popular understanding of this finding is often overextended; the paper itself is more modest and precise than its reputation suggests.

On Debiasing

Lilienfeld, S. O., Ammirati, R., & Landfield, K. (2009). Giving debiasing away: Can psychological research on correcting cognitive errors promote human welfare? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(4), 390–398. A sober review of the debiasing literature — what works, what doesn't, and why awareness alone is rarely sufficient. Essential reading for anyone who wants to actually reduce bias rather than just learn about it.

Klein, G. (2007). Performing a project premortem. Harvard Business Review, 85(9), 18–19. Gary Klein's original articulation of the pre-mortem technique, adapted from his research on intuitive decision-making. Two pages; immediately applicable.

On Motivated Reasoning

Kahan, D. M., Peters, E., Dawson, E., & Slovic, P. (2017). Motivated numeracy and enlightened self-government. Behavioural Public Policy, 1(1), 54–86. The Kahan et al. study showing that higher numeracy (quantitative reasoning ability) amplifies politically motivated reasoning rather than reducing it. A challenging finding with significant implications for how we think about epistemic virtue and public discourse.

Mercier, H., & Sperber, D. (2011). Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34(2), 57–74. A controversial but influential paper arguing that reasoning evolved not primarily for finding truth but for winning arguments — which would explain the prevalence of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. The target article is accompanied by extensive peer commentary.

Accessible Applications

Ariely, D. (2008). Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. HarperCollins. Ariely's engaging and accessible account of behavioral economics findings — anchoring, decoy effects, the ownership effect, the price-quality heuristic. Some findings have faced replication challenges, but the book is useful as an introduction and includes good exercises.

Duke, A. (2018). Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts. Portfolio/Penguin. Written by a former professional poker player and decision educator. Practical framework for probabilistic thinking, separating the quality of a decision from the quality of its outcome, and building decision-making processes that reduce bias. Highly readable and directly applicable.

Mlodinow, L. (2008). The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. Pantheon Books. A clear, engaging account of probability, statistics, and how poorly human intuition handles randomness. Directly relevant to the availability heuristic, base rate neglect, and overconfidence.