A psychology book for a season of changing your mind

Some seasons ask you to loosen your grip on what you were sure of: a habit in the kitchen, a way of running the house, an argument that has gone stale at the table. Think Again is a paperback of psychology and stories about doubt, unlearning and changing your mind, offered in a steady, practical way by an organizational psychologist.

Think Again is nonfiction by Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist and professor at Wharton. Its starting point is that intelligence usually means the ability to think and learn, while in a world that keeps shifting the ability to rethink and unlearn may count for more. The book asks why we so often choose the comfort of being sure over the discomfort of doubt. Beliefs, Grant says, can turn brittle long before our bones do.

Grant sorts our habits into three roles. We act like preachers defending sacred beliefs, prosecutors proving the other side wrong, or politicians campaigning for approval, and we spend too little time thinking like scientists in search of the truth. Being clever offers no protection. According to the description, good thinkers can be worse at rethinking, because the brighter we are, the harder it is to see our own limits. Reviewers describe three parts: why we struggle to accept feedback, how to help other people rethink, and how schools, workplaces and communities can make room for it. The method is research and storytelling, with cases such as an international debate champion, a Black musician who persuades white supremacists to abandon hate, and a vaccine whisperer who talks with worried parents. Grant’s own rule is to argue as if right and listen as if wrong.

The book is written for a general reader, and it tends to matter when you are asked to change your mind or to help someone else change theirs. That might be a new job, a team you lead, a classroom, a committee, or a family table where the same disagreement has been going around for years. It is less about winning arguments than about holding your views more loosely and asking better questions. Readers who like a clear, practical structure will find one. Readers who want a quiet reflective essay may find the pace brisker than they hoped, and that is a matter of taste, not something the details can settle.

This edition is a paperback from Penguin Books, published on December 26, 2023, in English, at 320 pages. It is a book of ideas backed by studies and short stories, so it can be read in short stretches. It was a number one New York Times bestseller, The Washington Post named it a best nonfiction book of 2021, and Brené Brown called it the “right book for right now.” The Financial Times described “a refreshing mandate” for humility. Those are the publisher’s chosen endorsements, so weigh them as praise, not measurement.

The idea that stays is the one the publisher puts last: knowledge is power, but knowing what we don’t know is wisdom. The book does not ask you to doubt everything. Grant’s point is that we do not have to believe everything we think, and that letting go of a view that no longer serves us is a skill that can be practiced. For someone settling into a new season of life, with habits worth keeping and a few worth questioning, that is a useful thing to have named.