Why are people's judgments about money often so spectacularly bad? Blame our caveman brains.
Mental shortcuts like the primitive "fight or flight" response or the tendency to see patterns in just about everything may have kept our prehistoric ancestors alive. But such thought habits make for dumb decisions in a complex financial world.
The solution, says author Zweig, isn't to ignore your instincts and impulses but to understand them and use your intellect to get around them. And yes, Zweig is a Money Magazine columnist, and we're prejudiced. But it's still the book of the year.
- David Futrelle
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