How can a particular way of argumenting direct our thinking? How does the formulation of a question influence the answer, producing a bias or an insight? And finally, what effect does public communication have on public behaviour?
Psychorhetoric and the Psychology of Thought illustrates the role played by rhetoric and communicative heuristics in the psychology of thinking and decision-making, and its effect on many areas of our daily life. It gives voice to a new and unconventional approach to the contemporary debate within the psychology of thought that has wide implications for key behavioural phenomena, including biases, creativity, decision making and public policy. This innovative work challenges conventional wisdom by proposing that cognitive biases are not inherent flaws in human cognition but rather outcomes of misleading communication patterns that influence our thinking processes.
This unconventional approach to the psychology of thought has significant implications for creativity, decision-making, economic behaviour, and public policy development. Essential reading for students and researchers in cognitive psychology, communication studies, and behavioural economics, this volume promises to reshape our understanding of human rationality and the communicative forces that guide it.
This unconventional approach to the psychology of thought has significant implications for creativity, decision-making, and public policy development. Essential reading for students and researchers in cognitive psychology, and behavioural economics, this volume promises to reshape our understanding of human rationality.
Arvustused
'Is human thinking biased or rational? Or is it simply meaningful, like other acts of human communication? In Psychorhetoric and the Psychology of Thought, Laura Macchi demonstrates an alternative to current accounts, focusing on the interpretive gap between a question and its answer. Her approach makes sense; that is: it made me think.'
Karl Halvor Teigen, Professor Emeritus at University of Oslo, Norway
Acknowledgements.
Chapter
1. Introduction. Psychorhetoric, the
interpretative function and the enigma of thought. Bias versus insight.
Chapter
2. The interpretative function and the emergence of unconscious
analytic thought.
Chapter
3. Solving insight problems: The cognitive
unconscious and the mystery of the creative solution.
Chapter
4. Critical
thinking beyond biases: Demonstrate, draw a conclusion, falsify.
Chapter
5.
Thinking uncertainty across possible worlds: statistical illiteracy or
misleading communication?
Chapter
6. Unravelling incoherence in decision
making: the critical case of disjunctive and framing effects in behavioural
insight
Chapter
7. Promoting action by discourse: The power of psychorhetoric
in behavioural insight and public communications. References. Index
Laura Macchi is Full Professor of Psychology of Thinking, Decision Making and Communication and of General Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. Her main co-edited publications include Thinking: Psychological Perspectives on Reasoning, Judgment and Decision Making (2003), Cognitive Unconscious and Human rationality (2016), and Insight and Creative Problem Solving (2018).
