When we’re presented with a choice, we compare the pros and cons of our options, and then we pick the one that seems the most favorable. The pros-and-cons approach is familiar. It is commonsensical. And it is also profoundly flawed. Research in psychology over the last 40 years has identified a set of biases in our thinking that doom the pros-and-cons model of decision making. If we aspire to make better choices, then we must learn how these biases work and how to fight them (with something more potent than a list of pros and cons). Prepare to encounter the four most pernicious villains of
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