Feeling Smart: Why Our Emotions Are More Rational Than We Think

  • 9h 11m 43s
  • Eyal Winter
  • Gildan Media
  • 2014

Distinguished authors like Daniel Kahneman, Dan Ariely, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb have written much about the flaws in the human brain when it comes time to make a decision. Our intuitions and passions frequently fail us, leading to outcomes we don't want.

In this book, Eyal Winter, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wonders: why? If our emotions are so destructive and unreliable, why has evolution left us with them? The answer is that, even though they may not behave in a purely logical manner, our emotions frequently lead us to better, safer, more optimal outcomes.

In this Audiobook

  • Chapter 1: What Is the Point of Getting Annoyed? Emotions as a Mechanism for Creating Commitments
  • Chapter 2: Why We Love Those Who Are Cruel to Us: Stockholm Syndrome and the Story of the Nazi Schoolteacher
  • Chapter 3: Emotional Impostors, Empathy, and Uncle Ezra's Poker Face
  • Chapter 4: Game Theory, Emotions, and the Golden Rule of Ethics
  • Chapter 5: The Prisoner's Dilemma in Repeated Interactions: Do Drawn Knives Increase Cooperation in the World?
  • Chapter 6: On Decency, Insult, and Revenge: Why Don't Suckers Suffer from Disgust?
  • Chapter 7: On Stigmas and Games of Trust: Why Did the Bees Commit Suicide?
  • Chapter 8: Self-Fulfilling Mistrust
  • Chapter 9: Cultural Differences, Palestinian Generosity, and Ruth's Mysterious Disappearance
  • Chapter 10: Collective Emotions and Uncle Walter's Trauma
  • Chapter 11: The Handicap Principle, the Ten Commandments, and Other Mechanisms for Ensuring Collective Survival
  • Chapter 12: Knowing How to Give, Knowing How to Receive: The Full Half of the Cholent
  • Chapter 13: The Spray That Will Give Us Love: On the Hormone that Creates Trust and Neutralizes Suspicion
  • Chapter 14: On Men, Women, and Evolution: Testing the Myths
  • Chapter 15: Make Me a Match Made in Heaven: Reproduction and the Mathematics of Romance
  • Chapter 16: From Cavemen Flutes to Bach Fugues: Why Did Evolution Create Art?
  • Chapter 17: Why Are We So Negative? The Arithmetic of Emotions
  • Chapter 18: On Arrogance and Humility: The Norwegian Professor's Syndrome
  • Chapter 19: Overconfidence and Risk: The “It Can't Happen to Me” Syndrome
  • Chapter 20: The Voice Is Herd: On the Sources of Herd Behavior
  • Chapter 21: Team Spirit: The Paradox of the Generous Bonuses and the Lazy Workers
  • Chapter 22: Irrational Emotions
  • Chapter 23: Nature or Nurture: What Is the Source of Rational Emotions?
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