How improvisation created language and changed the world

The Language Game

'Marvellously clear... playfully persuasive' Richard Dawkins 
'Full of Fascinating details. A delight to read.' Tim Harford 
'Highly original and convincing ... a delight to read!' - Daniel Everett 
 
What is language? 
Why do we have it? 
Why does that matter? 
 
Language is perhaps humanity's most astonishing accomplishment and one that remains poorly understood. 
 
Upending centuries of scholarship (including, most recently, Chomsky and Pinker) The Language Game shows how people learn to talk not by acquiring fixed meanings and rules, but by picking up, reusing, and recombining countless linguistic fragments in novel ways. 
 
Drawing on entertaining and persuasive examples from across the world the book explains: 
 
· How our short-lived memory copes with the on-rushing deluge of sound that is everyday speech. 
· Why it is that language is such a challenge for language scientists but learnt effortlessly by toddlers. 
· Why the languages of the world are so spectacularly varied---and why no two people speak quite the same language. 
· Why humans have language, but chimps don't. 
· How language gave us a big brain and changed the course of evolution. 
· How language doesn't limit, but does shape, how we think. 
·And ultimately, why all we know about language should give us hope. 
 
Christiansen and Chater's The Language Game draws on a fascinating range of examples to show the way language works, has shaped our evolution and is critical to our future.

Nick Chater

George Loewenstein

A wise and deeply-researched book and a stirring call to action. It is rare to see such expert thinkers reflect so profoundly on the risks of their own field.

Tim Harford, Financial Times journalist and author of 'The Undercover Economist'

If you believe corporate America, preventing a climate crisis is up to you. Loewenstein and Chater make a convincing case that this is little more than a self-serving lie.

Eduardo Porter, author of 'The Price of Everything'

From two experts in behavioral economics and social psychology, we have a masterclass in how to blend individual psychology with institutions, so that people are encouraged to get involved and develop solutions to our urgent problems via the democratic process.

Daron Acemoglu, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and co-author of 'Why Nations Fail'

This is an excellent book—engaging and well written. The authors convincingly show that in a system with complex interactions, nudge-style interventions at the individual level fail when the problem lies in the structure.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of 'Incerto', 'The Black Swan' and 'Antifragile'

Two of the leading scientists of human decision-making, write that nudges have vastly over-promised and under-delivered. Instead of trying to solve big, systematic problems by marginally changing how individuals respond to perverse incentives, they persuasively advise us to systematically change those incentives with the tools of government and democracy.

Alvin Roth, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and author of 'Who Gets What – and Why'

How Corporations and Behavioral Scientists Have Convinced Us that We're to Blame for Society's Deepest Problems

‘A stirring call to action’ – TIM HARFORD 
‘A masterclass’ – DARON ACEMOGLU 
'An excellent book' – NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB 
 
Two decades ago, behavioral economics burst from academia to the halls of power, on both sides of the Atlantic, with the promise that correcting individual biases could help transform society. The hope was that governments could deploy a new approach to addressing society’s deepest challenges, from inadequate retirement planning to climate change—gently, but cleverly, nudging people to make choices for their own good and the good of the planet. 
 
It was all very convenient, and false. As behavioral scientists Nick Chater and George Loewenstein show in It’s On You, nudges rarely work, and divert us from policies that do. For example, being nudged to switch to green energy doesn’t cut carbon, and it distracts from the real challenge of building a low-carbon economy. 
 
It’s on You shows how the rich and powerful have repeatedly used a clever sleight of hand: blaming individuals for social problems, with behavioral economics an unwitting accomplice, while lobbying against the systemic changes that could actually help. As two original proponents of the nudge principle, Nick and George now argue that rather than trying to “fix” the victims of bad policies, real progress requires rewriting the social and economic rulebook for the common good.

Nick Chater

Praise for It's On You

A wise and deeply-researched book and a stirring call to action. It is rare to see such expert thinkers reflect so profoundly on the risks of their own field.

If you believe corporate America, preventing a climate crisis is up to you. Loewenstein and Chater make a convincing case that this is little more than a self-serving lie.

From two experts in behavioral economics and social psychology, we have a masterclass in how to blend individual psychology with institutions, so that people are encouraged to get involved and develop solutio ...

A wise and deeply-researched book and a stirring call to action. It is rare to see such expert thinkers reflect so profoundly on the risks of their own field.

If you believe corporate America, preventing a climate crisis is up to you. Loewenstein and Chater make a convincing case that this is little more than a self-serving lie.

From two experts in behavioral economics and social psychology, we have a masterclass in how to blend individual psychology with institutions, so that people are encouraged to get involved and develop solutio ...

A wise and deeply-researched book and a stirring call to action. It is rare to see such expert thinkers reflect so profoundly on the risks of their own field.

If you believe corporate America, preventing a climate crisis is up to you. Loewenstein and Chater make a convincing case that this is little more than a self-serving lie.

From two experts in behavioral economics and social psychology, we have a masterclass in how to blend individual psychology with institutions, so that people are encouraged to get involved and develop solutio ...

Books by Nick Chater

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