Philip N. Johnson-Laird (2007). How we reason. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
This is a sophisticated but clearly written and enjoyable book by a leading researcher on the psychology of reasoning. In this book Johnson-Laird expands on his mental-models view of reasoning and shows how we reason well and how we sometimes reason poorly. In the category of reasoning well, I particularly enjoyed Chapter 25, in which Johnson-Laird explains how intelligent use of analogies allowed the Wright brothers to create the first workable airplane.
Richard E. Nisbett (2009). Intelligence and how to get it. New York: Norton. Nisbett is a leading social psychologist who has devoted much of his career to understanding how intelligence is influenced by the social and cultural environment. In this book for the general reader, he clearly describes such influences, including the influences of schooling and of cultural differences, particularly the differences between Asian and Western cultures.
James R. Flynn (2007). What is intelligence? Beyond the Flynn effect. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
While other intelligence researchers were immersed in the complexities of factor-analyzing yet more batteries of mental tests, Flynn noticed something that should have been obvious to everyone but wasn’t: IQs had been rising steeply with every generation. Why? What does that fact tell us about the IQ construct? How can it be that by today’s standards most of our great-grandparents would have been classified as retarded? What, really, is intelligence? If it is that which is measured by IQ tests, perhaps it is not so important after all; our great-grandparents did quite well, despite their dreadful performances on Raven’s Matrices. This is a thoughtful and clearly written book by a psychologist who has that rare quality, common sense. Professor Flynn has a more recent book on the topic: Are we getting smarter? Rising IQ in the twenty-first century (2012), which examines the data at a more technical level, for those students who want a slightly more in-depth look at this topic.
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Steven Johnson (2005). Everything bad for you is good for you: How today’s popular culture is actually making us smarter. New York: Riverhead Books.
This is a light, entertaining book that contains some profound thoughts about the experiences that improve our minds. Johnson will make you feel less guilty about whiling away hours playing videogames or watching popular television programs. If these activities are stretching your working memory, they may well be making you smarter. Johnson’s most valuable contribution is a qualitative analysis of the mental complexity of modern videogames and many modern television series. I especially enjoyed his entertaining turnabout on the conventional and stuffy argument that reading is mentally superior to television watching.
Daniel Kahneman (2011). Thinking fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman looks at the basics of human problem solving, reasoning, and decision making, based chiefly on over 40 years of research he did with his close collaborator Amos Tversky. Kahneman proposes, as have many others, that there are two basic processing systems, one “fast,” intuitive, and automatic, and the other “slow,” logical, and effortful. He reviews research on many of the topics covered in this chapter as well as other heuristics and biases the human mind is prone to. This engaging book is an excellent way for a beginner to get an idea of what cognitive psychology is all about.