Double book review- #Hooked and Thinking Fast and Slow

The human brain processes 11 million pieces of information every second but only 40 of those are processed consciously. That means 99.999% of all of your decision making is subconscious!

The reason this is a double book review is because both #Hooked and Thinking Fast and Slow cover almost exactly the same topics and I have been reading them in parallel. Actually that's not strictly true. I have been reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman on and off for the past month and struggling with it. The concept is amazing (he was awarded a novel prize in 2002 for his work documented in this book) and it has probably the most thought provoking first chapter of any book I have ever read but it is not an easy read. So I had read a chapter at a time and at other times have read some of the other books I have reviewed over the last few weeks.

One of those books is #Hooked by Patrick Fagan which I found at my local library in their business section. As already stated it covers the same topic as Thinking Fast and Slow but I have found it much easier to read. It is in fact very very similar to Thinking Fast and Slow. Dozens of the research examples used are identical and #Hooked even references Thinking Fast and Slow on multiple occasions. You could actually call #Hooked an easily digestible summary of Thinking Fast and Slow.

The body of research behind both books is largely to do with how our brains work, what influences our decisions and how that can be used to get people to notice, remember and act on the information you give them.

There are so many learning points from these books and I would strongly recommend you read one or the other. Here are a few points I have jotted down while reading Thinking Fast and Slow and examples of how they could relate to dentistry:
1) Complex mental or emotional tasks drain blood glucose levels quickly resulting in loss of inhibitions. Resulting in worse decision making when hungry. Therefore have regular snacks and keep energy levels up when you know your mental or emotional drain is high.

2) Priming can have a significant impact on behaviour. Calm happy environment. Positive music. Smile pictures. Concepts of success or longevity or beauty.

3) People who use unnecessarily complex words or phrases are often seen as less trustworthy. Font and colour and clarity of text also affects people's intuitive response to whether a phrase is true or not.

4) Being in a good mood makes you better at making intuitive decisions but might make your higher thinking less inclined to switch on.

5) Your system 1 (intuitive brain) automatically wants to believe statements and recognising they may not be true requires system 2 thinking (higher power). If your system 2 is preoccupied you may believe things that you normally would not.

6) The halo effect can mean you jump to conclusions. For instance if you are not concentrating well it is easy to discount a possible minor lesion because all the other teeth look sound rather than judging it on its own merits.

7) People can be easily swayed by suggesting they might like to do things or by simple gifts. E.g. Just getting reception to ask everybody "Do you need to buy any replacement toothbrush heads?"
Or giving everybody a pack of free tepes and asking them to share your Facebook page.

And to help explain #Hooked here pages 149-151 summarising everything in the proceeding pages:

So in conclusion, you should definitely read either #Hooked or Thinking Fast and Slow. Go with the former if you want a good summary which can be digested in a few hours or he latter if you want a more in depth text but be prepared for it to take a lot longer to read.