Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want

In this occasionally lively, but often tedious psychological study, behavioral scientist Epley draws deeply on various experiments and surveys, deftly exploring the ways that we get into the heads of those around us to navigate various social landscapes. Our abilities to read the minds of others, he states, “allow us to cooperate with those we should trust and avoid those we shouldn’t.” Moreover, this reading of minds “allows us to track our reputation in the eyes of others... and enables understanding between friends, forgiveness among enemies, empathy between strangers.” According to Epley, we often remain unaware of others because we fail to engage our capacity to understand their minds, often dehumanizing others and, in the worst case, stereotyping them. Epley suggests that we can behave more intelligently toward others by being smarter fighters, smarter leaders, and smarter neighbors. He encourages us to look beyond an individual’s behavior to the broader context in which certain behaviors occur, for actions reveal less about a person’s mind than they seem to. Epley forcefully, though unremarkably, concludes that “the secret to understanding each other comes through the hard relational work of putting people in a position where they can tell you their minds openly and honestly.” (Feb.)