320. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Still from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975)

320. Tversky found that "The masses were not equipped to grasp" the message he and Kahneman had to share with them. As Lewis puts it, "The subtleties were beyond them. People needed to be protected from misleading themselves into thinking that their minds were less trustworthy than they actually were" (320).

If someone were to tell you that the lesson of this book was that your "minds could never be trusted," what do you think Tversky would say to counter this summary?

334. To Have and To Distort

334. Lewis asks, provocatively, "what is a marriage if not an agreement to distort one's perception of another, in relation to everyone else?" (334).

Would you agree that a healthy, long-term relationship requires some kind of "willful distortion" and, perhaps, a willingness to the see the good in someone else even when it is not always evident? Or do you think it this kind of willful distortion may be the reason so many people endure long term relationships that are unhealthy and even toxic?

343. Aroma Technician?

World's Worst Job? 

343. According to Lewis, Cass Sunstein has shown that people don't choose between things, they choose between descriptions of things.

As an exercise in the power of description, choose one of the two following creative writing tasks:

a) Describe a terrible job in a way that makes it sound appealing;

b) Describe your favorite movie or book in a way that makes it sound boring.

50-word max on this one.

345. If You Don't Know, Now You Know

345. According to Lewis, Robert Tibshirani's research proves that "talking on the phone while driving is as dangerous as driving with a blood alcohol level at the legal limit" and "A driver talking on a cell phone was four times as likely as a drive who wasn't to be involved in a crash, whether or not he held the phone in his hands." But people who would not let other friends drive drunk have no problem talking to them on the phone while they were driving. And voters who might support laws against drunk driving would not currently support laws against talking on the phone while driving, even though it is not just the person talking on the phone who might suffer if they crash their car.

How likely is it that this information will change your talking/driving behavior? Why or why not? How likely are you to share this information with friends and family?

*The clip above is from the feature film "Locke" (2014), starring Tom Hardy.  For almost the entire movie, the main character is talking on the phone while driving.

Meme City: The Undoing Project

Throughout this book, Lewis discusses various biases that Kahneman and Tversky identify and explore.  A few of them are listed below with associated page numbers (there are many more that are not listed).

Can you transform some of these lessons into original memorable memes using an online meme generator program?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  For the purposes of this assignment, an effective, original meme is worth 100 words (must include page reference to the section in the book where the psychological phenomenon is discussed).

Paste your memes into the comments box.

44. The Endowment Effect.

People put a higher value on the things they own than the things are actually worth.

126. Regression to the Mean.
People overvalue the impact of praise and criticism on performance, which is less powerful than the tendency of people to return to their average performance level.

148. Confirmation Bias.
People ignore the evidence of their own eyes when it contradicts a theory they believe.

192. Memorability and Recency Bias.
Whatever people think of faster (because it was more recent or more memorable) seems more likely or representative to them than it actually is.

206. Hindsight bias.

After the fact, people think something was bound to happen, when it was not actually possible to foresee.

278. Framing
The answers people give are greatly affected by the way a question is phrased.

The Undoing Project Takeaway

So you've read The Undoing Project now. In 100 words or less, identify the part of the book that is most likely to stick with you the longest. What's your take away? Don't answer this question until you've finished reading the entire book.

Digging Deeper into The Undoing Project

Which Biblical narrative is embodied in "The Undoing Project"?  Watch the video above for a theory about that (which Lewis doesn't like) and much more, including the one takeaway Lewis hopes everyone gets from his book.

Click here for the Michael Lewis podcast

Below: a short video featuring Kahneman.

Below: a longer video featuring Kahneman.

Below:  a video featuring Amos Tversky.


Below are some trailers based on some of Michael Lewis's previous books:

The Big Short (2011 )


The Blind Side (2007).



Moneyball (2004):