Thinking 101

How to Reason Better to Live Better

By: Woo-kyoung Ahn

Narrated by: Lessa Lamb

"Every day of our lives, we make judgments—and we don’t always do a very good job of it. Thinking 101 is an invaluable resource to anyone who wants to think better. In remarkably clear language, and with engaging and often funny examples, Woo-kyoung Ahn uses cutting-edge research to explain the mistakes we often make—and how to avoid them.”—Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies

"Thinking 101 is a must-read—a smart and compellingly readable guide to cutting-edge research into how people think. Building from her popular Yale course, Professor Woo-kyoung Ahn shows how a better understanding of how our minds work can help us become smarter and wiser—and even kinder."—Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto, Brooks and Suzanne Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University, and the author of The Sweet Spot

"With an engaging and fresh narration, Lessa presents each fascinating chapter in a fun and easy way that helps listeners understand how to think more clearly and constructively."—AudioFile

Psychologist Woo-kyoung Ahn devised a course at Yale called “Thinking” to help students examine the biases that cause so many problems in their daily lives. It quickly became one of the university’s most popular courses. Now, for the first time, Ahn presents key insights from her years of teaching and research in a book for everyone.

She shows how “thinking problems” stand behind a wide range of challenges, from common, self-inflicted daily aggravations to our most pressing societal issues and inequities. Throughout, Ahn draws on decades of research from other cognitive psychologists, as well as from her own groundbreaking studies. And she presents it all in a compellingly accessible style that uses fun examples from pop culture, anecdotes from her own life, and illuminating stories from history and the headlines.

Thinking 101 is an audiobook that goes far beyond other resources on thinking, showing how we can improve not just our own daily lives through better awareness of our biases but also the lives of everyone around us. It is, quite simply, required listening for everyone who wants to think—and live—better.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Woo-kyoung Ahn (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

An excellent guide to assist proper decision making and the achievement of personal and community wisdom

Professor Ahn delivers a highly interesting, informative, and necessary introductory overview of the elements of good, mature thinking in our decision making.

The explanatory examples are apt.

I accept and endorse Professor Ahn’s admonition to readers to use the knowledge presented in the book, not as a manual for the ambitious sociopath to achieve “success” but as an valuable aid to develop wisdom, both personal and community.

Excellent book and excellent narration.

Overacting: is this a Disney channel production for teens?

The tone used by the actress is so annoying. She was so over the tope pretending all the time to add an overexcited tone, over-fun, over-complicity,… is this the Disney channel?
I was about stop listening as she was getting so badly under my skin. It’ll take weeks for my subconscious to forget her and to stop mocking her.
The book is fine.

Thinking 101

I found this book to be very interesting. I would like to go even further with another book. I’ll be recommending this book to others!

Good book terrible narration

The subject matter is great. The narrator is better suited for children's books rather than academic material.

Good Intro to Cognitive Biases. But Flawed.

I see this book as a decent introduction to the topic of cognitive biases. There's no reason to think that this author is not well qualified to explain the most common limitations of human thinking.

Nevertheless, the book has flaws that I could no ignore.

1) The writing shifts frequently between what sounds like dry-as-dust academic prose and chatty personal reflections on the authors own life and experiences. There's no consistent tone or style here. This is unfortunate and hard to ignore.

2) The author's examples from her own life are either trite and/or betray what sounds to me like false modesty. (I don't care how hard she worked to get her Ph.d in a mere 4 years. Yes, I'm sure it was challenging. We all face challenges. Spare us the false modesty over your achievements in academia 30 years ago. Please explain things to us as adults and not as privileged, but naive, college freshmen.)

3) The narrator's style of presentation sounds as if she is a nursery school teacher reading "Bunny Hop Hop" to 4 year olds. It's just not consistent at all with the topics covered in this book. This style of narration makes the author's personal anecdotes sound even more trivial. My suggestion is that you listen to the sample audio before buying this book. If you can tolerate the narrator, good for you.

Frustrating

I wish she wouldn’t use so many inflammatory examples in this book. She preaches about how you should be open minded and look at all the sides of the story, but then she is clearly pushing her opinions on social and political matters. She could have just continued to use examples like jack and jill with the ice water. I am liberal and I still don’t like this book. There are some things that are more nuanced than what she is even presenting here and she is only siting studies that support her arguments and then telling you to be open minded. It’s a waste of time.

A helpful read

After hearing the doctor’s interview on Armchair Expert, I was excited to hear her read the whole book! She’s delightful, which does come across in the writing, but felt a little stilted with the performer’s over pronunciation throughout. (The mispronunciation of the author’s name is a bummer, too).
The book itself: terrific!! Thanks!!
I’m sure I’ll need to review each chapter several times to keep myself conscious of biased and thinking shortcuts I recognized all too well.

Great information w a hard political slant

Take her analogies with a grain of salt. The ideas of logic work. You should apply them. But when you use them to fulfill your predetermined ideology, the logic can become dangerous. And the author has several predetermined ideologies she tries to push on you.

Beautifully read, good introduction to topic

Ahn's text is a good introduction of some of the research in behavioral economics and psychology, clearly explained and with no jargon. The weakest aspect is her attempt to connect the academic content with current events, where her examples are more motivated by politics than by clear applications of the concepts.

The audiobook reader gives the text humanity with a richness of compassion and inflection.

Reducing bias to increase fairness

Great book on the way we think and how to change unhelpful thinking patterns. The author gives great examples and a lot of research to back up her points. The book is rich with information, but the author makes it pleasant to consume and digest.