Mental effort, I would argue, is relatively rare. Most of the time we coast.

People like leaders who look like they are dominant, optimistic, friendly to their friends, and quick on the trigger when it comes to enemies. They like boldness and despise the appearance of timidity and protracted doubt.

The confidence people have in their beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence but of the coherence of the story the mind has managed to construct.

When people think of the outcomes of their decisions, they think much more short term than that. They think in terms of gains and losses.

An executive might have a very strong intuition that a given product has promise, without considering the probability that a rival is already ahead in developing the same product.

Some memories come with a very compelling sense of truth about them. And that happens to be the case even with memories that are not true.

We're generally overconfident in our opinions and our impressions and judgments.