Black-And-White Thinking - by Kevin Dutton (Paperback)

About the Book

"Several million years ago, natural selection equipped us with binary, black-and-white brains. This binary brain was highly adept at detecting risk: the ability to analyze threats and respond to changes in the sensory environment was essential to our survival as a species. Since then, the world has evolved-- but we, for the most part, haven't. Dutton shows that, while our instinct for categorization often encourages polarization, rigid thinking, and sometimes outright denialism, it is an essential component of the mental machinery we use to make sense of the world"--

Book Synopsis

A groundbreaking and timely book about how evolutionary biology can explain our black-and-white brains, and a lesson in how we can escape the pitfalls of binary thinking.

Several million years ago, natural selection equipped us with binary, black-and-white brains. Though the world was arguably simpler back then, it was in many ways much more dangerous. Not coincidentally, the binary brain was highly adept at detecting risk--the ability to analyze threats and respond to changes in the sensory environment was essential to our survival as a species.

Since then, the world has evolved--but we, for the most part, have not. Confronted with a panoply of shades of gray, our brains have a tendency to "force quit" to sort the things we see, hear, and experience into manageable but simplistic categories. We stereotype, pigeonhole, and, above all, draw lines where in reality there are none.

In Black-and-White Thinking, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton pulls back the curtains of the mind to reveal a new way of thinking about a problem as old as humanity itself. While our instinct for categorization often leads us astray, encouraging polarization, rigid thinking, and sometimes outright denialism, it is an essential component of the mental machinery we use to make sense of the world.

Using the latest advances in psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, Dutton shows how we can optimize our tendency to categorize and fine-tune our minds to avoid the pitfalls of too little--and too much--complexity. He reveals the enduring importance of three "super-categories"--Fight versus Flight, Us versus Them, and Right versus Wrong--and argues that they remain essential not only to convincing others to change their minds but to changing the world for the better.

Black-and-White Thinking is a science-based wake-up call for an era of increasing extremism and a thought-provoking, uplifting guide to training our gray matter to see that gray really does matter.

Review Quotes

"With this book, Kevin Dutton, has provided simplifying, clarifying, and essential insights into the character of human choice and decision-making. You'll not think about thinking the same way afterward." --Robert Cialdini, Author of Influence and Pre-Suasion

"Kevin Dutton has the great gift of being able to see patterns in human behaviour . . . He talks about his discoveries, and about their implications for all of us, with the flair and clarity of a practised storyteller. Fascinating, important, and entirely convincing." --Philip Pullman

"Kevin Dutton is a Special Forces-style psychologist. Daring. Original. All action. No nonsense." --Sir Ranulph Fiennes

About the Author

Kevin Dutton is a research psychologist and a fellow of the British Psychological Society who has spent the best part of the last twenty years at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He is the author of the acclaimed bestsellers Flipnosis: The Art of Split-Second Persuasion and The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, the latter of which was featured in The Best American Science and Nature Writing. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages, and his writing and research have been featured in Scientific American, The Guardian, Psychology Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, among other publications. Alongside his academic commitments, Dutton also regularly consults in elite sports, business, and military sectors.