The key ideas

The Art of Thinking Clearly

Rolf Dobelli, 2011

Why do we finish a bad film because the ticket is paid for, and trust a crowd even when it shouts nonsense? Rolf Dobelli collected dozens of thinking errors discovered by psychologists and economists, presenting each as a short story. This is a popular collection rather than scientific research, but it can reveal many decisions in a new light.

Who it is for

For anyone who feels reasonably intelligent yet keeps making foolish decisions. And for anyone wanting to notice their own thinking traps before spotting them in others.

Only in hindsight do the signals seem so clear.

What the book is about

Why does an intelligent, educated person finish a film they dislike merely because the ticket is already paid for? And why does everyone think a failure was foreseeable afterward?

Swiss writer and entrepreneur Rolf Dobelli began with a personal list: thinking errors he wanted to stop making. The list became newspaper columns, then a book in 2011, with fifty-two short chapters, one error per chapter. The 2013 English edition contains ninety-nine: chapters from the second book were added to the first. Most chapters describe one cognitive bias, a systematic trap even a very intelligent person can fall into.

An honest qualification first. This is a popular collection rather than original research. Dobelli does not claim these discoveries as his own: psychologists and economists described them, primarily Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, and much comes from Nassim Taleb. Taleb later publicly accused Dobelli of borrowing, and the author added references and corrections in subsequent editions. The book’s value lies elsewhere: collecting others’ discoveries into short, memorable stories.

Ahead are eight traps particularly easy to recognize in yourself.

Idea 1. The invisible graveyard

Rick dreams of a rock band. He sees stars onstage and thinks: they made it, so can I. Dobelli suggests looking where Rick does not. For every famous band, countless others rehearsed for years and were never heard. Nobody writes about or interviews them. The author calls this the graveyard of unsuccessful musicians.

Dobelli sees a similar picture in books, startups, and investments. Success is visible; failures are silent. The odds therefore seem better than they are. This is called survivorship bias.

Livria example: a friend says she quit her job and became a successful blogger. You simply never hear from those who did the same and quietly returned to an office a year later.

Loud success stories can distort the odds even when true: people who failed are simply invisible beside them. Before a risky step, ask where those who tried and failed are.

Read in Livria

About the author

Rolf Dobelli is a Swiss writer and entrepreneur, born in Lucerne in 1966, with a doctorate from the University of St. Gallen. He cofounded the business-book summary service getAbstract. His books on thinking grew from newspaper columns.

All books by this author: Rolf Dobelli

The Art of Thinking Clearly Quiz

Terms from the book

  • Confirmation bias
  • Sunk-cost fallacy
  • social proof
  • Survivorship bias
  • Cognitive bias: A systematic departure from logic in thinking that may recur in many people in similar situations. A psychological term brought into use through Kahneman and Tversky’s research.
  • Anchoring effect: The influence of the first number heard on a later estimate, even if that number is random. Its strength may depend on conditions.

All terms

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