Thinking 101
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. In Ahn’s class, students examine “thinking problems”—like confirmation bias, causal attribution, and delayed gratification—and how they contribute to our most pressing societal issues and inequities. Now, for the first time, Ahn presents key insights from her years of teaching and research in a book for everyone.
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 readable style that uses fun examples from K-pop dancing, anecdotes from her own life, and illuminating stories from history and the headlines.
Thinking 101 is a book that goes far beyond other books on thinking, showing how we can improve not just our own daily lives and tackle real-world problems through better awareness of our biases but also the lives of everyone around us. It is, quite simply, required reading for everyone who wants to think—and live—better.
About the Author
WOO-KYOUNG AHN is the John Hay Whitney Professor of Psychology at Yale University. After receiving her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, she was assistant professor at Yale University and associate professor at Vanderbilt University. In 2022, she received Yale's Lex Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences. Her research on thinking biases has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, and she is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. Thinking 101 is her first book.
