Black-and-White Thinking

Black and White Thinking (2020) examines the human brain’s irresistible impulse to sort things into binary categories: black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. The instinct to categorize is strong –⁠ and we have evolution to thank for it. But while categorization helped us survive in ancient times – when every trip into the forest was life or death – it’s become an obstacle in the modern world. Today, life’s rarely black-and-white, but often shades of gray.

Kevin Dutton is a British psychologist who specializes in the study of psychopathy and persuasion. He’s a researcher at the University of Oxford and the author of The Wisdom of Psychopaths and Flipnosis: The Art of Split-Second Persuasion.