Table Of ContentJacob Burak is a Tel Aviv-based writer who draws from psychology, science and
art to examine life and human nature. Since retiring from his business career in
2005, Burak has authored three other bestsellers: Do Chimpanzees Dream of
Retirement (2007), Noise (2009) and Why Kamikaze Pilots Wear Helmets (2011).
Burak holds a BSc in Engineering and Management from the Technion and
studied management at Harvard. He is active in social causes, including Round-
up Israel, which enables credit card users to donate fractions of their purchases,
and formerly chaired the Midot organization that rates the effectiveness of
NGOs. In 2013, Burak founded Alaxon a digital magazine featuring articles on
culture, art and popular science, for which he writes regularly.
HOW TO FIND
A BLACK CAT IN
A DARK ROOM*
The Psychology of Intuition
Influence, Decision Making and Trust
*ESPECIALLY WHEN
THERE IS NO CAT
Jacob Burak
Translated form the Hebrew by Ira Moscowitz
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Part I The Life Worth Living
If Only
Life offers a second opportunity, and it’s called tomorrow
Escape from the Matrix
The fear of missing out haunts our social networks and our real lives alike,
but there is a way to break free
The Rule of One Foot on the Ground
Knowing when to let go of our ambitions
Picking Your Battles
Our willpower depletes like a muscle – let’s save it for when we really need
it
One Day, When I’m Younger
Hope is the emotion that most affects our lives
Challenging the Bottom-Line Approach
Valuing process over outcome
Happiness: Cut Out and Save
Ten rules that lead to happiness and that we control
A Bit of Humble Pie Goes a Long Way
Overvaluing confidence, we’ve forgotten the power of humility
Part II Why Smart People Make Stupid Mistakes
Why Do Smart People Make Stupid Mistakes?
How our brains continue to protect us against threats that no longer exist
And Merci to the French Teacher
Why introducing a problem in a foreign language overcomes major
cognitive biases
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Judges as humans—food for thought
If I’m Not for Myself
On the powerful egocentric bias
Knowing What We Don’t Know
Why incompetent people don’t recognize their ineptitude
Birdbrained
When some birds are smarter than people
I Saw a Monkey Playing Mozart
On the roots of urban legends
Lake Victoria and Uncle Albert
Is it possible to swindle honest people?
I Accuse, Falsely
The path to justice is paved with deceptive evidence
Part III All in Good Order
List for Life
The magical powers of a to-do list
On the Shoulders of Giants
The lists of rankings are another level of order
Outlook: Gloomy
Humans are wired for bad news, angry faces and sad memories. Is this
negativity bias useful or something to overcome?
Cold Hands or a Warm Heart
Ranking the traits that form our views of others
I’ve Seen Happy Conservatives
What are the psychological dynamics that differentiate between liberals and
conservatives?
The Matthew Effect
The mysterious engine that generates inequality
Ode to a Bureaucrat
What empowers the bureaucrats of the world?
Part IV Alone in the Crowd
Me, Myself and I
The sorrows of the narcissist as a social animal
No Friends Among Secrets
Choosing the people to whom we surrender our asset called privacy
Long Live the Small Difference
Are we more similar or different?
An Embarrassment of Riches
Signs of social discomfort might carry a positive message of authenticity
Trust Games
The self-reinforcing circle of trust and trustworthiness
The Beginning of a Beautiful Rivalry
Rivalry is as old as humanity – how our rivals own a deep part of ourselves
that spurs us to our greatest achievements
Guardians of the Lake
When personal interests mobilize to protect social capital
Epilogue
Memento Mori
Recommendations for Further Reading
INTRODUCTION
This book takes its name from the timeless advice that the Chinese philosopher
Confucius offered to those who seek enlightenment: “The hardest thing of all is
to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there’s no cat.” That is, you better
know what you’re looking for before you begin. Those who go in search of
something whose nature is not entirely clear to them will not succeed in finding
it. But what about those who find a black cat in a dark room even when no cat is
there? Shall we say they are creative, innovative or maybe just illusionists?
And what about people who are shown the image of a black cat taken with a
heat-sensitive camera, in an effort to convince them that it is indeed possible to
find black cats, even in places where they ostensibly are not present? Should
they dismiss the photograph as a fake devised by interested parties, or should
they see it as an opportunity to broaden their minds about black cats in general,
and such cats in a dark room in particular?
I was born in 1948, the year the State of Israel was founded, and I was raised
and educated there. Like the state, I’ve experienced a lot: I studied engineering
at the Technion and later graduated from the PMD program at Harvard Business
School; I served as a naval officer with the rank of commander, created a leading
management consultancy firm and was a member of Shimon Peres’ “100 days”
team that prepared him to take the reins as prime minister; and I later formed the
Evergreen investment firm that became a venture capital pioneer in Israel. In
2007, I left the business world to devote myself to writing and social activity. If
there’s one thing I learned during these years of diverse experience, it is that the
essence of military, business and philanthropy alike is people, and that the
essence of people is psychology. Therefore, the black cats I’m searching for
usually hide between the pages of extraordinary studies in the field of behavioral
science.
This book presents some of the research findings that have been helpful in my
personal journey. However, the choice of which research to present in the book
is not arbitrary and is by no means a function of their scientific importance. Alas,
the choice reflects the beliefs of the author and is designed to serve his
worldview. Non-fiction writing in the Internet era entails curating thoughts, and
non-fiction writing in the behavioral sciences ultimately entails curating studies
in the field.
Nonetheless, other sources of insights and findings will be cited here that stem
from authentic curiosity, untainted by the author’s biases. Is it important to
distinguish between them? Not necessarily, if we understand that both types of
sources stimulate thinking and that therein lies their primary importance. In any
case, it’s worth remembering that time is the best curator, not the author, and that
the overriding rule here is: what is important is not new, and what is new is
probably unimportant.
Beyond the interesting findings of one study or another, the central question
this book poses is: to what extent are we really bound by the experience of
others and by these research findings? Are we part of a large audience of
potential guinea pigs, whose inclinations are summarized in behavioral studies?
Or rather, are we distinct individuals in this audience, endowed with the freedom
of choice to behave differently? In other words, do we even have anything to
learn from them, or do they apply to everyone around us, but not to us?
Paradoxically, if you identify yourself in the research conclusions, as I do—even
when they shed light on our less flattering sides, such as envy, vindictiveness,
materialism or procrastination—you have the opportunity to learn from them, to
draw conclusions, and to choose a path that will express greater responsibility
toward your emotional wellbeing and the welfare of the society in which you
live. If, on the other hand, you continue to feel that you’re so unique that the
findings do not apply to you, you’ll perhaps miss an important opportunity to
change, and for the better.
The book is divided into four sections, each with several articles.
In the section entitled The Life Worth Living, you’ll discover the damages of
FoMO—the Fear of Missing Out. This fear of missing a social or other
happening makes us dash frenetically from one electronic gadget to another. But
the truly important question is whether we’re really missing something if, in any
case, most of us are doomed to lead meaningless lives of mere spiritual survival.
In this section, we’ll also discover the limited importance of the test of the
ultimate outcome, the blessed calm that humility engenders and ten rules to
happiness that are all under our control, some of which are not self-evident.
The Why Smart People Make Stupid Mistakes section maps some of the
prevalent biases that accompany our routine, everyday decisions. You’ll discover
that we are almost strangers to ourselves, and that our statistical ignorance, when
combined with excessive confidence, produces a volatile mixture resulting in
erroneous decisions. Here too, humility, in typical shyness, raises its head and
explains that wisdom is not knowledge. In fact, wisdom is a moral quality of
those who recognize the limitations of their knowledge.
The All in Good Order section reviews some of the common human tools for
making order in the chaos we encounter in life. Some of them are conscious,
such as the “to-do” lists we prepare with obsessive diligence, and some are
unconscious, like our inclination to attribute greater weight to the negative than
to the positive. It turns out that negative events are etched more deeply in our
brains than positive events, and most of the neurons in the areas of the brain
linked to emotional activity hunt for bad news. But why?
Alone in the Crowd deals with the disruption of the historical balance between
our desire to make an impact as individuals and our social need to belong. A
unique combination of technological means and the erosion of social values,
such as interpersonal trust, is paving the way to an era that has already been
defined as the Narcissistic Era. Can the social pendulum still swing back into
balance? This section also tries to address the question of whether we are more
similar to or different from one another, and deciphers the roots of the disgust we
feel toward a bitter rival.
Here are 50 studies (and stories) that spurred me to re-examine my worldview.
Now, they’re yours too and I hope you’ll find yourself in them, as I did.
PART I
THE LIFE WORTH LIVING
