Press materials

Over sixteen days, Katrin moves through ordinary situations in which her first reading of what is happening is not always the one that survives a closer look. Each chapter follows one of those moments into the psychology underneath it, from attention and prediction to memory, threat, uncertainty and social inference. The book does not promise better instincts. It asks what becomes possible when we learn where our first reading came from.

It is less interested in teaching you to trust your instincts than in showing you what, exactly, you are trusting.

Sixteen cases. Three readings. One question: state or situation?

Every chapter carries a confidence marker showing how much evidence its claims rest on, and the reference section lists both the work each chapter is built on and the work that limits it, together with the places where the chapters say more than their sources.