We'd all love to believe we're rational creatures, but research tells us otherwise. The fact is, we do most of our processing, decision-making and thinking on the fly, not with deep analysis.

Daniel Kahneman, the psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, is a foremost authority on this. Rather than reading all 512 pages of Thinking Fast and Slow, you can get a summary of Kahneman's work in these short video snippets.

Of particular interest to the communicator and leader: "System 1 doesn't think in statistics. System 1 creates stories and absorbs stories."

You'll find all the videos here, but in particular, check out:

PREDICTION: Personal Stories Have More Impact
You're likely to give more weight to experience than hard data, even when the past is unlikely to predict the future.

STORIES: What You See Is Not All There Is
Be wary of constructing a story based only on what you see--you may not realize what you don't know.

FRAMING: Every Salesman's Favorite Cognitive Illusion
What's worse: A disease with 90% survival or one with 10% mortality? (Even doctors get that wrong.) The Nobel winner on how "framing" fools everyone.

NEGOTIATION: Use Anchoring to Your Advantage
You can gain the upper hand in negotiations by setting--or resetting--the anchor number.