Mental Models
Tit For Tat
Tit for tat is a strategy which, according to game theory, is the most effective choice for iterated games based on mutual cooperation or defection. Both players benefit if they cooperate, but one benefits and the other loses out if only …
Reciprocity: Getting What You Give
This article is an excerpt from the bestselling book The Great Mental Models Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology Reciprocity teaches us why win-win relationships are the way to go, why waiters leave candies with the bill, why it’s a …
A Wandering Mind: How Travel Can Change the Way You Think
Most people travel as an observer, and as a result, “see” a lot. When you travel as an active participant, the experience can transform the way you think, and how you see the world. ** Here’s a situation familiar to many of us: We decide …
5 Mental Models to Remove (Some of) the Confusion from Parenting
We often talk about mental models in the context of business, investing, and careers. But mental models can also help with other areas, like parenting. Here are 5 principle-based models you can apply to any family, any situation, and any …
Predicting the Future with Bayes’ Theorem
In episode #37 of The Knowledge Project, we talked with professional poker player Annie Duke about thinking in probabilities, something good poker players do all the time. At the poker table or in life, it’s useful to think in probabilities …
Thought Experiment: How Einstein Solved Difficult Problems
Thought experiments are a classic tool used by many great thinkers. They enable us to explore impossible situations and predict their implications and outcomes. Mastering thought experiments can help you confront difficult questions and …
The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions
The OODA Loop is a four-step process for making effective decisions in high-stakes situations. It involves collecting relevant information, recognizing potential biases, deciding, and acting, then repeating the process with new information. …
Mental Models for Career Changes
Career changes are some of the biggest moves we will ever make, but they don’t have to be daunting. Using mental models to make decisions we determine where we want to go and how to get there. The result is a change that aligns with the …
How Julia Child Used First Principles Thinking
There’s a big difference between knowing how to follow a recipe and knowing how to cook. If you can master the first principles within a domain, you can see much further than those who are just following recipes. That’s what Julia Child, …
Descriptions Aren’t Prescriptions
When we look at a representation of reality, we can choose to either see it as descriptive, meaning it tells us what the world is currently like, or as prescriptive, meaning it tells us how the world should be. Descriptions teach us, but …
What Sharks Can Teach Us About Survivorship Bias
Survivorship bias refers to the idea that we get a false representation of reality when we base our understanding only on the experiences of those who live to tell their story. Taking a look at how we misrepresent shark attacks highlights …
Mental Models For a Pandemic
Mental models help us understand the world better, something which is especially valuable during times of confusion, like a pandemic. Here’s how to apply mental models to gain a more accurate picture of reality and keep a cool head. ** It …
Using Models to Stay Calm in Charged Situations
When polarizing topics are discussed in meetings, passions can run high and cloud our judgment. Learn how mental models can help you see clearly from this real-life scenario. ** Mental models can sometimes come off as an abstract concept. …
Prisoner’s Dilemma: What Game Are you Playing?
In this classic game theory experiment, you must decide: rat out another for personal benefit, or cooperate? The answer may be more complicated than you think. ** What does it take to make people cooperate with each other when the …
Survivorship Bias: The Tale of Forgotten Failures
Survivorship bias is a common logical error that distorts our understanding of the world. It happens when we assume that success tells the whole story and when we don’t adequately consider past failures. There are thousands, even tens of …
Illusion of Transparency: Your Poker Face is Better Than You Think
We tend to think that people can easily tell what we’re thinking and feeling. They can’t. Understanding the illusion of transparency bias can improve relationships, job performance, and more. ** “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that …
How to Use Occam’s Razor Without Getting Cut
Occam’s razor is one of the most useful, (yet misunderstood,) models in your mental toolbox to solve problems more quickly and efficiently. Here’s how to use it. ** Occam’s razor (also known as the “law of parsimony”) is a problem-solving …
Resonance: How to Open Doors For Other People
It’s only polite. Hold the door open for others, and they will open doors for you. We are far more interdependent than we would like to admit. We biologically need to connect. “Limbic resonance” is a term used by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, …
Entropy: The Hidden Force Making Life Complicated
Entropy seems complicated, but it’s simple: it measures disorder in a system. Picture your bedroom. Neat and organized? That’s low entropy. But leave it alone, and chaos creeps in – clothes on the floor, papers everywhere. …
The Surprising Power of The Long Game
In a world where most people play the short game, playing the long game offers a huge advantage. There is an old saying that I think of often, passed to me by my friend Peter Kaufman, “If you do what everyone else is doing, you …
Winner Takes it All: How Markets Favor the Few at the Expense of the Many
Markets tend to favor unequal distributions of market share and profits, with a few leaders emerging in any industry. Winner-take-all markets are hard to disrupt and suppress the entry of new players by locking in market share for leading …
The Disproportional Power of Anecdotes
Anecdotes tend to not be statistically significant, but their added emotional significance leads us to place additional weight on them. ** Humans, it seems, have an innate tendency to overgeneralize from small samples. How many times have …
Deductive vs Inductive Reasoning: Make Smarter Arguments, Better Decisions, and Stronger Conclusions
You can’t prove truth, but using deductive and inductive reasoning, you can get close. Learn the difference between the two types of reasoning and how to use them when evaluating facts and arguments. In this article we’ll cover: What …
The Value of Probabilistic Thinking: Spies, Crime, and Lightning Strikes
Probabilistic thinking is essentially trying to estimate, using some tools of math and logic, the likelihood of any specific outcome coming to pass. It is one of the best tools we have to improve the accuracy of our decisions. In a world …