Jonah Lehrer Books

"A leading behavioral economist shows how businesses can improve consumer thinking and decision-making on screens, "--NoveList.

Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate or we 'blink' and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind's black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they're discovering this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason - and the precise mix depends on the situation. When buying a house, for example, it's best to let our unconscious mull over the many variables. But when we're picking stocks and shares, intuition often leads us astray. The trick is to determine when to lean on which part of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think.

"In this technology-driven age, it's tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, science has cured countless diseases and even sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer argues in this sparkling debut, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first. Taking a group of artists - a painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelists - Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain's malleability; how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how Cézanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of language -- a full half-century before the work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists. It's the ultimate tale of art trumping science. More broadly, Lehrer shows that there is a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding, and art knows this better than science does. An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science and art to listen more closely to each other, for willing minds can combine the best of both, to brilliant effect."--Publisher's description.

Did you know that the most creative companies have centralized bathrooms? That brainstorming meetings are often ineffective? That the color blue can boost your creative output? This insightful exploration into the science of creativity reveals that it’s not a rare gift but a set of thought processes anyone can master. Jonah Lehrer debunks the myths surrounding creativity, showing the value of embracing ruts, thinking like a child, and daydreaming productively. He emphasizes the importance of collaboration, the right mix of partners, and the necessity of constructive criticism. Lehrer also illustrates how to enhance our neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools for greater creativity. Through engaging anecdotes, you’ll learn about Bob Dylan’s writing habits, a bartender with a chemist's mindset, and an autistic surfer who created a new surfing move. Discover why Elizabethan England thrived creatively and how Pixar designs its spaces to inspire innovation. By connecting the dots between the brain’s inner workings and artistic achievements, this work highlights the profound inventiveness of the human mind and its crucial role in navigating our complex world.