Willpower

Authors: Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney


There have been several books in the recent past on exploring how our mind works and this one adds to a rather long list. The premise of the book is that intelligence and self-control are two of the most important traits that determine our success. A formula for increasing intelligence has been elusive thus far, so the author focuses on the seemingly simpler task of improving our self-control.

The book rambles on for several pages on how the brain needs nutrition to function. This has been well describe by Daniel Kahneman in his comprehensive book "Thinking Fast and Slow" and is not really new material. Furthermore, I got it in the first couple of pages, but had to endure the discourse for another 30 odd pages. 

There are many useful concepts that are described in the book and here's a sampling of those that left an impression on me:

The Zeigarnik effect describes how the human mind keeps revisiting unfinished tasks and these can end up as a tax on your cognitive system. It explained the widespread success of Allen's GTD method, and is a useful concept that will help you be more effective.

There are several examples of the challenge of being faced with too much choice. This reminded me of the pain my wife and I went through in picking light fixtures for our home remodel. The ability to shop for these on the internet, gave us an overwhelming number of items we could choose from and we found it harder to make a simple decision when faced with this humongous choice.    

I learned a new term called "ego depletion" which  refers to how we use up a limited store of willpower that makes us more susceptible to slipping up. Surprisingly there is no discussion on how long this effect lasts. I would like to know if it lasts for a few minutes as in the case of most of the experiments described, or are there situations where it can last for much longer.

The author also highlights the concept of "bright lines", which is the notion of setting clear boundaries. For instance, a goal of zero tolerance will be easier to keep than one where you want to drink moderately. I have a personal experience of this one. There are some other well established tenets of child-rearing, like ferberization, consistent discipline and rewarding good behavior, that are described in this book.

Overall, this is a good book that will leave you with a better understanding of how to be more successful in tasks that require willpower.  My favorite quote from the book is "vice delayed may be vice denied".

The Wisdom of Crowds

Author: James Surowiecki


For a long time I resisted the urge to read this book, as the premise seemed rather obvious. To someone who lives by the reviews on Yelp, or reads the reviews on Amazon before buying a book, there is no additional convincing needed to believe in the wisdom of crowds. It got too hard to ignore when I started seeing it being quoted in other scholarly works and I finally caved in and followed the crowd on this one.

The book is a lot more than just the notion of how an average of independent samples of human observation tends to be remarkably accurate. It has all kinds of nuggets of information on economic experimentation. For example the author describes an experiment where university students randomly walk up to someone on the subway and ask for their seat. The surprising fact is that 50% of the time people actually give up their seat; and this is in the NY Subway, no less. The author then goes on to describe the ultimatum game where one person splits a sum of money in two, and the other decides if he is going to accept the portion that is designated for him. If he rejects the proposal then neither of them get any part of the money. It would seem that a rational player would accept any proposal, since he gets nothing otherwise. However, it turns out that if the split is perceived as very unfair then the player rejects the proposal, suggesting that the utility function is more than just personal gain. How all this relates to the "wisdom of crowds", I don't know, but it makes for some interesting reading.

While I do agree with the general hypothesis of the wisdom of crowds I find it hard to believe that it is always right. I do agree that the statistical sampling that goes into a crowd view makes it more robust to individual biases and timing. However, there are numerous examples like bubbles in a stock market where you can see that the crowd is often wrong. The other place that I find myself disagreeing with the author is the notion that democracy works because it is the wisdom of crowds. A place where it is severely broken is the numerous propositions that the entire state of California is required to vote on and is the crowd view taken to an extreme. However, most people do not understand these propositions and the outcome is simply based on their biases about the topic, e.g. Gay Rights, School Budgets, etc. 

Overall, regardless of whether you agree with the premise or not, the Wisdom of Crowds is a great read.