Think Like A Freak Analysis

The Webster dictionary defines a freak as such “one that is markedly unusual or abnormal”. Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have a slightly different perspective on the term freak. “To think a bit differently, a bit harder, a bit more freely” (Think Like a Freak, 211). Throughout their novel, they encourage you, as the reader, to think diversely in your everyday life. Each chapter guides you through a new insightful way to think about situations. From admitting that you just don’t know, using successful bribery, changing the way you ask a question, to thinking innocently like a child. Within each of these suggestions to thinking like a freak, they give specific examples. In the chapter about the three hardest words in the English language, I don’t know, the authors spoke about an experiment they conducted with a bunch of British schoolchildren. They presented them with a simple story and asked them a few questions that corresponded to the story. Of the four questions they asked them, two of the questions could not be answered because the story did …show more content…
And perhaps in a way, they do. Their concepts speak volumes; it’s true that we are too often stuck in cultural boundaries. Thinking outside the box, thinking differently will get you called a freak because you’re methodology is unusual or abnormal. So maybe the authors want you to think abnormally, maybe that’s the whole basis of thinking like a freak. “Letting go of the conventional wisdoms that torment us. Letting go of the artificial limits that hold us back-and of the fear of admitting what we don’t know” (Think Like a Freak, 210). Be abnormal; challenge what you already think, challenge what the world around you tells you to believe, challenge the way you’re taught to approach a question, don’t accept that quitting is failure, challenge the cultural norm that bribery is distasteful, and let