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

by Eyal Winter

Overview

Which is smarter -- your head or your gut? It's a familiar refrain: you're getting too emotional. Try and think rationally. But is it always good advice?

In this surprising book, Eyal Winter asks a simple question: why do we have emotions? If they lead to such bad decisions, why hasn't evolution long since made emotions irrelevant? 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 fact, as Winter discovers, there is often logic in emotion, and emotion in logic. For instance, many mutually beneficial commitments -- such as marriage, or being a member of a team -- are only possible when underscored by emotion rather than deliberate thought. The difference between pleasurable music and bad noise is mathematically precise; yet it is also something we feel at an instinctive level. And even though people are usually overconfident -- how can we all be above average? -- we often benefit from our arrogance.

Feeling Smart brings together game theory, evolution, and behavioral science to produce a surprising and very persuasive defense of how we think, even when we don't.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610394901
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	12/30/2014
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Eyal Winter is professor of economics and director of the Center for the Study of Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, one of the world's leading institutions in the academic study of decision making. He served as chairman of the economics department at Hebrew University and was the 2011 recipient of the Humboldt Prize, awarded by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany. He has lectured at over 130 universities in 26 countries around the world, including Harvard University, Stanford University, Princeton University, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Cambridge.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Preface ix
Introduction: What Is Rationality? xv

PART I: ON ANGER AND COMMITMENT

CHAPTER 1: What Is the Point of Getting Annoyed? Emotions as a Mechanism for Creating Commitments 3
CHAPTER 2: Why We Love Those Who Are Cruel to Us: Stockholm Syndrome and the Story of the Nazi Schoolteacher 12
CHAPTER 3: Emotional Impostors, Empathy, and Uncle Ezra’s Poker Face 18
CHAPTER 4: Game Theory, Emotions, and the Golden Rule of Ethics 31
CHAPTER 5: The Prisoner’s Dilemma in Repeated Interactions: Do Drawn
Knives Increase Cooperation in the World? 38
CHAPTER 6: On Decency, Insult, and Revenge: Why Don’t Suckers Suffer from
Disgust? 51

PART II: ON TRUST AND GENEROSITY

CHAPTER 7: On Stigmas and Games of Trust: Why Did the Bees Commit
Suicide?, 61
CHAPTER 8: Self-Ful?lling Mistrust 69
CHAPTER 9: Cultural Differences, Palestinian Generosity, and Ruth’s
Mysterious Disappearance, 73
CHAPTER 10: Collective Emotions and Uncle Walter’s Trauma 87
CHAPTER 11: The Handicap Principle, the Ten Commandments, and Other
Mechanisms for Ensuring Collective Survival, 98
CHAPTER 12: Knowing How to Give, Knowing How to Receive: The Full Half of the Cholent, 110

PART III: ON LOVE AND SEXUALITY

CHAPTER 13: The Spray That Will Give Us Love: On the Hormone that Creates
Trust and Neutralizes Suspicion 117
CHAPTER 14: On Men, Women, and Evolution: Testing the Myths 121
CHAPTER 15: Make Me a Match Made in Heaven: Reproduction and the
Mathematics of Romance 145
CHAPTER 16: From Cavemen Flutes to Bach Fugues: Why Did Evolution Create
Art? 160

PART IV: ON OPTIMISM, PESSIMISM, AND GROUP BEHAVIOR

CHAPTER 17: Why Are We So Negative? The Arithmetic of Emotions 167
CHAPTER 18: On Arrogance and Humility: The Norwegian Professor’s Syndrome173
CHAPTER 19: Overcon?dence and Risk: The “It Can’t Happen to Me” Syndrome 178
CHAPTER 20: The Voice Is Herd: On the Sources of Herd Behavior 189
CHAPTER 21: Team Spirit: The Paradox of the Generous Bonuses and the Lazy
Workers 201

PART V: ON RATIONALITY, EMOTIONS, AND GENES

CHAPTER 22: Irrational Emotions 219
CHAPTER 23: Nature or Nurture: What Is the Source of Rational Emotions? 228

Epilogue 233
Notes 239
Index 247

Editorial Reviews

10/20/2014
Economist Winter looks at the relationship between emotion and rationality in this study, and if the results do not fully answer the questions he raises, he still gives plentiful insights into the many factors that govern our choices. The book’s central thesis is that being emotional and being rational are not the diametrically opposed states people often assume them to be, and that, far from clouding judgment, instinctive feelings play an essential role in guiding it. Winter draws on the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma to illustrate this point, applying a mathematical model to the apparently unsystematic process of decision making. Even anger, within this framework, is persuasively shown to have an instructive purpose. Winter struggles, however, to tie all of the examples covered to the central theme of emotion. In particular, an extended passage that examines and questions clichés about gender and sexuality (such as “Men, more than women, seek physically attractive mates” and “Homosexuality provides no evolutionary advantage”) wanders far afield from the emotion-reason dichotomy. But even if the book doesn’t completely fulfill its goal of collapsing the divide between feelings and reason, we can at least begin, with its help, to reason with our emotions through their inherent foundation of rationality. Agent: Jim Levine, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

“Feeling Smart puts the social back into social science. The truth is that there's a touchy feely aspect of Game Theory, and Winter shows how expressing and understanding your feelings (and those around you) will help you become a far better strategist. Be smarter or be smarting, your call.”—Barry Nalebuff, Milton Steinbach Professor, Yale School of Management, and coauthor of The Art of Strategy

“Emotions and rationality are often thought of as polar opposites. But Eyal Winter—a leading game theorist and economist—shows compellingly that emotions can actually promote rational behavior. His book makes fascinating reading.”—Eric Maskin, Nobel Laureate in Economics

“It is a pleasure to follow Eyal Winter as he explores the deep logic of illogical emotions and helps us to see the rationality of irrational behavior.”—Roger Myerson, Nobel Laureate in Economics

“Much like Sigmund Freud, Eyal Winter knows that understanding human behavior demands listening and observing rather than labeling and categorizing. But here's what Freud didn't know: that framing his findings in the rigorous language of economic theory would be so illuminating, so surprising, and so exciting.”—Robert Lucas, Nobel Laureate in Economics

“Eyal Winter's breezy guide to when and why it is sometimes perfectly rational to let the heart rule the head is as fresh as it is clever. In his brisk tour of the burgeoning field of experimental economics, Professor Winter shows that sense and sensibility are complements rather than polar opposites, and proves his point with intriguing insights into hot-button issues like affirmative action and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Feeling Smart will leave you feeling not only smarter, but more optimistic as well.”—Sylvia Nasar, author, A Beautiful Mind

“In Feeling Smart Eyal Winter shows us how the emotions that we sometimes wish we didn't have, such as anger and envy, can be surprisingly useful. You will certainly not be less angry after reading this book, but you will better understand the focus that shapes your emotions.”—Dan Ariely, bestselling author of Predictably Irrational

“Many suppose that the domains of emotion and rational thought are always separate. But as this intriguing book demonstrates they are wrong: emotional sensibility makes an important contribution to rational decision making. Feeling Smart shows us how.”—Lawrence Summers, former President of Harvard University and former Secretary of the Treasury of the United States

“We are used to thinking that emotions such as anger, love, insult, and so forth are irrational. In his new book, Eyal Winter explains why these emotions are actually very rational, fulfilling important functions that usually advance the most vital interests of each of us. This is an important, enjoyable, and convincing book.”—Robert J. Aumann, Nobel Laureate in Economics

“Eyal Winter, a distinguished game theorist and behavioral economist, writes about rationality and emotion with compassion and empathy.”—Alvin Roth, Nobel Laureate in Economics

“Eyal Winter has written engagingly on the science of action and emotion; on why and how feelings make us smarter and are central to understanding rational action and interaction in processes of human betterment that are subtly inaccessible to our self-aware consciousness.”
—Vernon Smith, Nobel Laureate in Economics

“It is that rare book that a casual reader could open at a random page and expect to find something interesting…For the casual reader, Feeling Smart is a fascinating…romp through the positive ways that emotions can shape our actions. It is also a helpful balm for those who worry that their emotions occasionally over-run their ‘higher faculties'.”—Financial Times

“Insightful and intriguing.” —Success Magazine

“Filled with fascinating studies and personal anecdotes…A lively, accessible work.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[Feeling Smart] gives plentiful insights into the many factors that govern our choices...we can at least begin, with its help, to reason with our emotions through their inherent foundation of rationality.” —Publishers Weekly

“Eyal Winter's book admirably draws together the important recent work on social and individual behavior and its implications for economic behavior. He shows clearly how the more traditional rational analysis remains an important part of explanation, but is by no means adequate. His exposition is breezily informal, yet rigorous; accounts from his family join seamlessly with citations on the literature, to which he himself has made significant contributions.”—Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Laureate in Economics

From the Publisher

2014-10-08
A Humboldt Prize-winning Israeli scholar of behavioral economics advances the concept of rational emotions in a book filled with fascinating studies and personal anecdotes.Winter (Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of Rationality/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) turns to game theory, the study of interactive decisions, for explanations of how emotional behavior can bring about cooperation in situations in which rational behavior fails to do so. In the classic prisoner's dilemma, for example, the author sees that an emotional need for reciprocity is the main motivation for cooperation. Treading the line between economics and psychology, Winter rejects the idea that the brain has separate mechanisms for emotional behavior and rational behavior. In his view, the two systems are intertwined and constantly in dialogue, with our emotions helping us to make rational decisions because our emotional behavior creates the possibility of influencing the behaviors of others. Besides his frequent references to the work of other economists, many of them Nobel Prize winners, and to the research experiments of psychologists, Winter often turns to his own life to make his points. A study of the difference in work habits of northern and southern Italians, an experiment revealing the cultural differences among Israeli, Chinese and Palestinian players in a game of giving and taking, and the risk-taking behaviors of bomber pilots in World War II are all woven into a narrative that includes a story about his aunts' food negotiations at holiday meals and his cool, poker-playing uncle's ability to win by reading the faces of the other players. No special knowledge of game theory or of economic theory is required to follow Winter's arguments, and his insights about human behavior range over a variety of areas: politics, religion, sex, marriage and art. A lively, accessible work.

Kirkus Reviews