Field
Institutions, law, power and social dynamics.
2 Ideas · 5 Books · 31 questions
This field is about people in groups and about how crowds, institutions and power work. A group can know more than any of its members. It can also make decisions that none of its members would make alone. Both effects follow rules that researchers have studied for more than a century.
The pieces here explain those rules with clear cases. Some come from modern experiments on judgment and estimation. Others come from older books, such as Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd from 1895, which shaped how politicians and advertisers thought about mass audiences. The reviews say which of their claims later research supports and which it does not.
Start with the wisdom of the crowd, which shows when averaging many opinions works and when it fails. Cognitive dissonance explains why groups defend a belief even after the facts turn against it. Then read the review of Le Bon to see where these ideas came from.
The best first reads in this field, in this order.
IdeaIntro
About 800 people at an English livestock fair guessed the weight of an ox, and most of them were far off. You learn why the average of their guesses was still almost exactly right and which three conditions a group needs for this. You also learn why the same group can fail badly when people copy each other.
7 min read≈ 1,630 words3 questions
IdeaIntro
Why would people paid one dollar to lie end up liking a dull task more than people paid twenty? You learn what cognitive dissonance is, how the famous 1959 experiment worked, and where you meet the effect in your own decisions. You also learn how well the evidence holds up today.
7 min read≈ 1,620 words3 questions
BookIntro
A French doctor claimed in 1895 that a person changes into someone else the moment they join a crowd. You learn how Gustave Le Bon explained this change, which methods he said leaders use to control crowds, and why his book became a handbook for propagandists. You also learn what modern research on crowds has found.
9 min read≈ 2,080 words5 questions
Mackay's 1841 classic on bubbles, witch hunts and fads: what the book says, which famous stories historians now doubt, and how to read it today.
10 min read≈ 2,170 words5 questions
Harari's history of humankind in one argument: shared fictions let strangers cooperate. The key ideas, what historians criticize, and who should read it.
9 min read≈ 1,960 words5 questions
What the ancient Chinese classic on strategy really says, who may have written it, where its advice fails, and which translation to read.
11 min read≈ 2,490 words5 questions
Why some groups perform far better than their members' talent suggests: Coyle's three skills of safety, vulnerability and purpose, and their limits.
9 min read≈ 2,060 words5 questions
