Book Reading #50 - Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 12: We’ Don’t Constrain Ourselves

Summary:

In this chapter, the author mainly talks about constraints and affordances.

Constraints: Simple mental aids that keep us on the right track by limiting our alternatives.

Affordances: Clues to how a thing can be used.

He mentions that making a proper use of these two concepts can avoid a lot of human errors. Hallinan also mentions that a person's attitude has plays a major role in occurrence of errors and mistakes.

Discussion:

The ideas presented were straight forward and easy to understand. The examples made them more clear to understand. The ideas presented in this chapter can actually be applied in real lives to prudently avoid mistakes.

Chapter 13: The Grass Does Look Greener

Summary:

In this chapter the author talks about how people are often wrong about predicting outcomes of a certain event or action. As an example, he mentions a couple moving to California from Wisconsin, thinking that they would be happier in California. However, their prediction was wrong and they ended up moving back to Wisconsin. Author also talks about gift cards and how they benefit the company rather than benefiting the customer.

Discussion:

I agree with the author only to some extent. I believe in dreaming big. Only if you dream big, can you think big and only if you think big, can you achieve something big. It was a different story that moving to California didn't really turn out to be a great choice for the couple from Wisconsin, but how would they know if they never even tried.

Conclusion:

In this chapter, the author tried to summarize of the important ideas presented in this chapter. He summarizes his ideas into a few suggestions - Think small and think in steps, calibration can be taught, creating a written record helps a person fend off the rose-colored-glasses of hindsight bias, sometimes it's important to watch out for failures, don’t be set in your ways, slow down, get plenty of sleep and always be happy.