Sam Thomas Davies
Factfulness by Hans Rosling
Print | Audiobook | Get My Searchable Collection of 100+ Book Notes
The Book in One Sentence
- Factfulness is about the ten instincts that distort our perspective of the world and prevent us from seeing how it actually is.
Want More Book Summaries?
Factfulness summary, 10 instincts that distort our perspective.
- The Gap Instinct. Our tendency to divide things into two distinct and often conflicting groups with an imagined gap between them (e.g. us and them ).
- The Negativity Instinct. Our tendency to notice the bad more than the good (e.g. believing that things are getting worse when things are actually getting better).
- The Straight Line Instinct. Our tendency to assume that a line will just continue straight and ignoring that such lines are rare in reality.
- The Fear Instinct. Our hardwired tendency to pay more attention to frightening things.
- The Size Instinct. Our tendency to get things out of proportion, or misjudge the size of things (e.g. we systematically overestimate the proportions of immigrants in our countries.)
- The Generalization Instinct. Our tendency to mistakenly group together things or people, or countries that are actually very different.
- The Destiny Instinct. The idea that innate characteristics determine the destinies of people, countries, religions, or cultures; that things are as they are because of inescapable reasons.
- The Single Perspective. Our tendency to focus on a single cause or perspective when it comes to understanding the world (e.g. forming your worldview by relying on the media, alone).
- The Blame Instinct. Our tendency to find a clear, simple reason for why something bad has happened.
- The Urgency Instinct. Our tendency to take immediate action in the face of perceived imminent danger, and in doing so, amplifying our other instincts.
Introduction: Why I Love the Circus
Every group of people that Hans Rosling asks thinks that the world is more frightening, more violent, and more hopeless than it really is.
“Step-by-step, year-by-year, the world is improving,” writes Rosling. “Not on every single measure every single year, but as a rule. Though the world faces huge challenges, we have made tremendous progress. This is the fact-based worldview.”
Rosling writes, “We need to learn to control our drama intake. Uncontrolled, our appetite for the dramatic goes too far, prevents us from seeing the world as it is, and leads us terribly astray.”
Chapter One: The Gap Instinct
The gap instinct describes our tendency to divide things into two distinct and often conflicting groups with an imagined gap in between them.
“Eighty-five percent of mankind is already inside the box that used to be named ‘developed world.’ The remaining 15 percent are mostly in between the two boxes. Only 13 countries, representing 6 percent of the world population, are still inside the ‘developing’ box.”
“There is no gap between the West and the rest, between developed and developing, between rich and poor. And we should all stop using the simple pairs of categories that suggest there is.”
“Only 9 percent of the world lives in low-income countries.”
“Low-income countries are much more developed than most people think. And vastly fewer people live in them. The idea of a divided world with a majority stuck in misery and deprivation is an illusion. A complete misconception. Simply wrong.”
“The majority of people live neither in low-income countries nor in high-income countries, but in middle-income countries. This category doesn’t exist in the divided mindset, but in reality, it definitely exists.”
“Dividing countries into two groups no longer make sense,” says Rosling. It doesn’t help us to understand the world in a practical way. Nor does it help businesses find opportunities or aid money to find the poorest people.
Our most important challenge in developing a fact-based worldview, according to Rosling, is to realize that most of our firsthand experiences are from Level 4; and that our secondhand experiences are filtered through the mass media, which loves nonrepresentative extraordinary events and shuns normality.
Factfulness Is …
- … recognizing when a story talks about a gap and remembering that this paints a picture of two separate groups, with a gap in between. The reality is often not polarized at all. Usually, the majority is right there in the middle, where the gap is supposed to be.
- To control the gap instinct, look for the majority.
- Beware comparisons of averages. If you could check the spreads you would probably find they overlap. There is probably no gap at all.
- Beware comparisons of extremes. In all groups, of countries or people, there are some at the top and some at the bottom. The difference is sometimes extremely unfair. But even then the majority is usually somewhere in between, right where the gap is supposed to be.
- The view from up here. Remember, looking down from above distorts the view. Everything else looks equally short, but it’s not.
Chapter Two: The Negativity Instinct
The negativity instinct describes our tendency to notice the bad more than the good.
Rosling invites readers to think of the world as a premature baby in an incubator. He writes,
Does it make sense to say that the infant’s situation is improving? Yes. Absolutely. Does it make sense to say it is bad? Yes, absolutely. Does saying “things are improving” imply that everything is fine, and we should all relax and not worry? No, not at all. Is it helpful to have to choose between bad and improving? Definitely not. It’s both. It’s both bad and better. Better, and bad, at the same time. That is how we must think about the current state of the world.
When you hear about something terrible, calm yourself by asking, If there had been an equally large positive improvement, would I have heard about that?
Factfulness Is …
- … recognizing when we get negative news, and remembering that information about bad events is much more likely to reach us. When things are getting better we often don’t hear about them. This gives us a systematically too-negative impression of the world around us, which is very stressful. To control the negativity instinct, expect bad news.
- Better and bad. Practice distinguishing between a level (e.g., bad) and a direction of change (e.g., better). Convince yourself that things can be both better and bad.
- Good news is not news. Good news is almost never reported. So the news is almost always bad. When you see bad news, ask whether equally, positive news would have reached you.
- Gradual improvement is not news. When a trend is gradually improving, with periodic dips, you are more likely to notice the dips than the overall improvement.
- More news does not equal more suffering. More bad news is sometimes due to better surveillance of suffering, not a worsening world.
- Beware of rosy pasts. People often glorify their early experiences, and nations often glorify their histories.
Chapter Three: The Straight Line Instinct
The straight line instinct describes our tendency to assume that a line will just continue straight and ignoring that such lines are rare in reality.
The world population is increasing. But it’s not just increasing. The “just” implies that, if nothing is done, the population will just keep on growing. It implies that some drastic action is needed in order to stop the growth. That is the misconception, and Rosling believes that it is based on our instinct to assume that lines are straight.
- … recognizing the assumption that a line will just continue straight, and remembering that such lines are rare in reality. To control the straight line instinct, remember that curves come in different shapes.
- Don’t assume straight lines. Many trends do not follow straight lines but are S-bends, slides, humps, or doubling lines. No child ever kept up the rate of growth it achieved in its first six months, and no parents would expect it to.
Chapter Four: The Fear Instinct
The fear instinct describes our tendency to pay more attention to frightening things.
“Critical thinking is always difficult, but it’s almost impossible when we are scared. There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.”
“The image of a dangerous world has never been broadcast more effectively than it is now, while the world has never been less violent and more safe.”
- … recognizing when frightening things get our attention, and remembering that these are not necessarily the most risky . Our natural fears of violence, captivity, and contamination make us systematically overestimate these risks. To control the fear instinct, calculate the risks.
- The scary world: fear vs. reality. The world seems scarier than it is because what you hear about it has been selected—by your own attention filter or by the media—precisely because it is scary.
- Risk = danger × exposure. The risk something poses to you depends not on how scared it makes you feel, but on a combination of two things. How dangerous is it? And how much are you exposed to it?
- Get calm before you carry on. When you are afraid, you see the world differently. Make as few decisions as possible until the panic has subsided.
Chapter Five: The Size Instinct
The size instinct describes our tendency to get things out of proportion, or misjudge the size of things (e.g. we systematically overestimate the proportions of immigrants in our countries.)
Ingegerd Rooth, a missionary nurse, once told Han Rosling, “In the deepest poverty, you should never do anything perfectly. If you do you are stealing resources from where they can be better used.”
“The two aspects of the size instinct, together with the negativity instinct, make us systematically underestimate the progress that has been made in the world.”
“To avoid getting things out of proportion you need only two magic tools: comparing and dividing.”
“The most important thing you can do to avoid misjudging something’s importance is to avoid lonely numbers. Never, ever leave a number all by itself. Never believe that one number on its own can be meaningful. If you are offered one number, always ask for at least one more. Something to compare it with. Be especially careful about big numbers.”
- … recognizing when a lonely number seems impressive (small or large), and remembering that you could get the opposite impression if it were compared with or divided by some other relevant number. To control the size instinct, get things in proportion.
- Compare. Big numbers always look big. Single numbers on their own are misleading and should make you suspicious. Always look for comparisons. Ideally, divide by something.
- 80/20. Have you been given a long list? Look for the few largest items and deal with those first. They are quite likely more important than all the others put together.
- Divide. Amounts and rates can tell very different stories. Rates are more meaningful, especially when comparing between different-sized groups. In particular, look for rates per person when comparing between countries or regions.
Chapter Six: The Generalization Instinct
“[The generalization instinct] can make us mistakenly group together things, or people, or countries that are actually very different. It can make us assume everything or everyone in one category is similar. And, maybe most unfortunate of all, it can make us jump to conclusions about a whole category based on a few, or even just one, unusual example.”
- … recognizing when a category is being used in an explanation, and remembering that categories can be misleading. We can’t stop generalization and we shouldn’t even try. What we should try to do is to avoid generalizing incorrectly. To control the generalization instinct, question your categories.
- Look for differences within groups. Especially when the groups are large, look for ways to split them into smaller, more precise categories. And …
- Look for similarities across groups. If you find striking similarities between different groups, consider whether your categories are relevant. But also …
- Look for differences across groups. Do not assume that what applies for one group (e.g., you and other people living on Level 4 or unconscious soldiers) applies for another (e.g., people not living on Level 4 or sleeping babies).
- Beware of “the majority.” The majority just means more than half. Ask whether it means 51 percent, 99 percent, or something in between.
- Beware of vivid examples. Vivid images are easier to recall but they might be the exception rather than the rule.
- Assume people are not idiots. When something looks strange, be curious and humble, and think, In what way is this a smart solution?
Chapter Seven: The Destiny Instinct
The destiny instinct is the idea that innate characteristics determine the destinies of people, countries, religions, or cultures. It’s the idea that things are as they are for ineluctable, inescapable reasons: they have always been this way and will never change.
This instinct makes us believe that our false generalizations (the generalization instinct) or the tempting gaps (the gap instinct) are not only true but fated: unchanging and unchangeable.
- … recognizing that many things (including people, countries, religions, and cultures) appear to be constant just because the change is happening slowly, and remembering that even small, slow changes gradually add up to big changes. To control the destiny instinct, remember slow change is still change.
- Keep track of gradual improvements. A small change every year can translate to a huge change over time.
- Update your knowledge. Some knowledge goes out of date quickly. Technology, countries, societies, cultures, and religions are constantly changing.
- Talk to Grandpa. If you want to be reminded of how values have changed, think about your grandparents’ values and how they differ from yours.
- Collect examples of cultural change. Challenge the idea that today’s culture must also have been yesterday’s, and will also be tomorrow’s.
Chapter Eight: The Single Perspective Instinct
“Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you like to understand reality. Instead, constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, see people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world.”
- … recognizing that a single perspective can limit your imagination, and remembering that it is better to look at problems from many angles to get a more accurate understanding and find practical solutions. To control the single perspective instinct, get a toolbox, not a hammer.
- Test your ideas. Don’t only collect examples that show how excellent your favorite ideas are. Have people who disagree with you test your ideas and find their weaknesses.
- Limited expertise. Don’t claim expertise beyond your field: be humble about what you don’t know. Be aware too of the limits of the expertise of others.
- Hammers and nails. If you are good with a tool, you may want to use it too often. If you have analyzed a problem in depth, you can end up exaggerating the importance of that problem or of your solution. Remember that no one tool is good for everything. If your favorite idea is a hammer, look for colleagues with screwdrivers, wrenches, and tape measures. Be open to ideas from other fields.
- Numbers, but not only numbers. The world cannot be understood without numbers, and it cannot be understood with numbers alone. Love numbers for what they tell you about real lives.
- Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions. History is full of visionaries who used simple utopian visions to justify terrible actions. Welcome complexity. Combine ideas. Compromise. Solve problems on a case-by-case basis.
Chapter Nine: The Blame Instinct
The blame instinct describes our tendency to find a clear, simple reason for why something bad has happened.
When things go wrong, it’s easy to assume it’s due to bad people with bad intentions.
Rosling writes, “We like to believe that things happen because someone wanted them to, that individuals have power and agency: otherwise, the world feels unpredictable, confusing, and frightening.”
“The blame instinct makes us exaggerate the importance of individuals or of particular groups,” writes Rosling. “This instinct to find a guilty party derails our ability to develop a true, fact-based understanding of the world: it steals our focus as we obsess about someone to blame, then blocks our learning because once we have decided who to [blame] we stop looking for explanations elsewhere. This undermines our ability to solve the problem or prevent it from happening again because we are stuck with over simplistic finger-pointing, which distracts us from the more complex truth and prevents us from focusing our energy in the right places.
- … recognizing when a scapegoat is being used and remembering that blaming an individual often steals the focus from other possible explanations and blocks our ability to prevent similar problems in the future. To control the blame instinct, resist finding a scapegoat.
- Look for causes, not villains. When something goes wrong don’t look for an individual or a group to blame. Accept that bad things can happen without anyone intending them to. Instead spend your energy on understanding the multiple interacting causes, or system, that created the situation.
- Look for systems, not heroes. When someone claims to have caused something good, ask whether the outcome might have happened anyway, even if that individual had done nothing. Give the system some credit.
Chapter Ten: The Urgency Instinct
The urgency instinct describes our tendency to take immediate action in the face of perceived imminent danger, and in doing so, amplifying our other instincts.
To paraphrase Rosling, the urgency instinct served us well in the past. For example, if we thought there might be a lion in the grass, it wasn’t sensible to do too much analysis. But now that we have eliminated most immediate dangers and are left with more complex and often more abstract problems, the urgency instinct can lead us astray when it comes to our understanding of the world around us.
- … recognizing when a decision feels urgent and remembering that it rarely is. To control the urgency instinct, take small steps.
- Take a breath. When your urgency instinct is triggered, your other instincts kick in and your analysis shuts down. Ask for more time and more information. It’s rarely now or never and it’s rarely either/or.
- Insist on the data. If something is urgent and important, it should be measured. Beware of data that is relevant but inaccurate, or accurate but irrelevant. Only relevant and accurate data is useful.
- Beware of fortune-tellers. Any prediction about the future is uncertain. Be wary of predictions that fail to acknowledge that. Insist on a full range of scenarios, never just the best or worst case. Ask how often such predictions have been right before.
- Be wary of drastic action. Ask what the side effects will be. Ask how the idea has been tested. Step-by-step practical improvements and evaluation of their impact are less dramatic but usually more effective.
Recommended Reading
If you like Factfulness , you might also like:
- Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results by James Clear
- Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depends On It by Chris Voss
- Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
Buy The Book: Factfulness
Print | Hardcover | Audiobook
Related Lists
- Business Book Summaries
- Psychology Book Summaries
- Self-Help Book Summaries
Or, browse more book summaries .
Book Summary – Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things are Better Than You Think
Home > Book Summary - Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—and Why Things are Better Than You Think
Most people have grossly inaccurate views of the world we live in. When we’re asked simple questions about global trends, we systematically get the answers wrong and see the world to be much worse than it really is. In Factfulness, Hans Rosling presents 10 dramatic instincts that distort our perceptions, as well as detailed facts and statistics about the real state of our world today. In our Factfulness summary, we’ll explain the 10 key mental filters and how to recognize/manage them to develop a fact-based worldview, to avoid unnecessary stress and improve our ability to make sound decisions.
For the full details, examples and tips, do get a copy of the book, or get a detailed overview with our complete book summary bundle .
Over the years, Rosling has been presenting questions about global trends (e.g. poverty, health, environment) to thousands of people worldwide. He discovered that people generally believe that the world is getting worse, when facts and data show that the world is getting better. For example, in the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has almost halved. Yet, only 7% of the people surveyed got that right; the majority believed that the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has remained the same, or has almost doubled.
Most of us don’t see the world as it is, because we sift the inputs through a mental filter that favors dramatic information. Thus, we tend to have an exaggerated and overly-negative view of the world, which creates unnecessary fear and stress. When we’re operating on the wrong facts, we can’t develop sound solutions or make good decisions.
We’ll now give a synopsis of the 10 dramatic instincts and zoom in on the first instinct in more detail. Do get a copy of our full 15-page summary for a detailed overview of all 10 instincts, or get the full mojo (complete with statistics, charts and examples) from the Factfulness book .
The 10 Dramatic Instincts
1. the gap instinct.
We tend to divide things into 2 distinct groups and imagine a gap between them, e.g. good vs bad, rich vs poor. This is one of most damaging instincts as it creates an imagined chasm that leads to all sorts of mis-perceptions.
In particular, most of us still mentally divide the world into 2 parts: developing non-Western countries vs developed Western countries . This notion is at least 20-30 years outdated. In the book Rosling presents various statistics to explain where/how our estimations go wrong, and shows that it’s much more meaningful to look at the world with 4 levels of income:
When we split the world into 2 distinct groups with a big gap in between, it suggests conflict between the groups. In reality, things usually fall on a spectrum—there’re no distinct lines between groups, and most groups share a lot in common. Specifically, there are 3 types of “gap stories” that trigger our gap instinct:
Comparing Averages
Comparing Extremes
We tend to remember extreme examples (e.g. the richest vs poorest people) as these are more dramatic. However, such extremes are usually the minority and do not reflect the majority which are in the middle.
View from above
When you’re living on Level 4, your perceptions of the other levels are filtered through the mass media (which tends to focus on the extreme and the dramatic). From the top of a tall building, the objects on the ground level look deceptively small. Likewise, our Level 4 perception of lives on Levels 1-3 are usually distorted.
To control your Gap Instinct, realize that that in reality, there’s usually no gap, extremes are the minority, and the majority are in the middle were the gap is supposed to be. • Be mindful of the 3 types of gap stories which you may hear or tell yourself. • When you hear a story of 2 distinct groups with a gap between then, examine the spread of data and you’re likely to find 2 overlapping groups with no real gap.
OTHER DRAMATIC INSTINCTS
Here’s a graphical summary of the 10 Dramatic Instincts and how to control them. Do check out the book / our full 15-page summary for details on the remaining dramatic instincts:
The 10 Dramatic Instincts in a nutshell
• The Gap Instinct: We tend to divide things into 2 distinct groups and imagine a gap between them. • The Negativity Instinct: We tend to instinctively notice the bad more than the good. • The Straight Line Instinct: When we see a line going up steadily, we tend to assume the line will continue to go up in the foreseeable future. • The Fear Instinct: We tend to perceive the world to be scarier than it really is. • The Size Instinct: We tend to see things out of proportion, over-estimating (a) the importance of a single event/person that’s visible to us, and (b) the scale of an issue based on a standalone number. • The Generalization Instinct: We tend to wrongly assume that everything or everyone in a category is similar. • The Destiny Instinct: We tend to assume that (a) the destinies of people, cultures, countries etc. are predetermined by certain factors, and (b) such factors are fixed and unchanging, i.e. their destinies are fixed. • The Single Perspective Instinct: We tend to focus on single causes or solutions, which are easier to grasp and make our problems seem easier to solve. • The Blame Instinct: When something goes wrong, we instinctively blame it on someone or something. • The Urgency Instinct: We tend to rush into a problem or opportunity for fear that there’s no time and we may be too late.
Using Factfulness in Daily Life
Our dramatic instincts exist for a reason and everyone has them. The key is to manage these instincts, so we can think factfully and find better solutions based on a real understanding of the world. In the book / complete summary we look at how factfulness can be applied to our daily lives, including education and business.
The book is packed with data and charts about the state of the world and our 10 dramatic instincts. Rosling also shared many of his personal experiences, as well as specific data about 5 global risks which he personally believes are worthy of concern: Global pandemic, global financial collapse, World War III; climate change, and extreme poverty (which still affects 800mil people today). For more details and resources, please visit www.gapminder.org.
Learn how to manage your mental filters, develop a fact-based worldview and make better decisions!
Get 2 Free Infographic Summaries
Leave a Reply Cancel Reply
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
- Free Sample Summaries
- Affiliate Programs
- Reviews/Testimonials
- Store (Buy individual summaries)
- Gift All Summaries
- Subscription Plans (Get all summaries)
- List of Book Summaries
Customer Care
- Suggest book titles
- Privacy Policy
- Disclaimers
© 2023 Readingraphics.
- Business & Entrepreneurship
- Business Strategy & Culture
- Finance, Money & Wealth
- Leadership & Management
- Sales & Marketing
- Health, Wellness & Spiritual Growth
- Learning & Development
- Technology & Innovation
- Problem-Solving & Creativity
- Personal Development & Success
- Parenting & Relationships
- Psychology, Economics, Sociology & General
- View All Categories
- Subscribe (Get ALL Summaries)
- Shop Summaries
Factfulness Summary
1-Sentence-Summary: Factfulness explains how our worldview has been distorted with the rise of new media, which ten human instincts cause erroneous thinking, and how we can learn to separate fact from fiction when forming our opinions.
Favorite quote from the author:
Table of Contents
Video Summary
Factfulness review, audio summary, who would i recommend the factfulness summary to.
When I first got into reading blogs, learning about self-improvement, and exploring the startup scene, I was a delusional optimist . I read and read, thinking I would somehow make it as an entrepreneur. But that was just blind faith. I never actually did anything. Over the years, I’ve learned to become more of a realist-optimist. I still focus on the positive, but I try not to sugarcoat things.
As it turns out, with fake news and advertising-driven media becoming more and more extreme, this was a good move. Usually, life is better than news outlets make us believe, so focusing on the facts, but staying positive, will help you form clearer opinions. That’s why Bill Gates is such a big fan of books like Enlightenment Now , which bring us up to speed with data about the world.
It’s no wonder, then, that Factfulness is another one of his 2018 favorites . Written by the Swedish, late professor, sword swallower, and public speaker Hans Rosling , it’s a book about the current state of the world. But beyond giving us the facts, it helps us see them for ourselves by diving into ten mental biases that obstruct our thinking .
Here are my favorite 3 and the lessons I learned from debunking them:
- There is no such thing as “the East and the West.” We only have one world.
- Population growth will eventually level off, despite our perception of increasing numbers.
- To see the world accurately, you always need multiple perspectives.
The world is trying hard to hide the facts from you on a day-to-day basis. Let’s learn how to find them anyway!
If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.
Lesson 1: The East vs. West mentality is outdated. We all share this planet.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t. What I hope to be a clever Quora answer of mine is also one of the first points Rosling makes. He calls it ‘the gap instinct.’ It’s our tendency to want to see things as black and white. The example he uses to illustrate it is the classic division of the world into East and West.
I, too, have grown up in a time where schools would teach Westerners that their countries are developed, while Asian ones are currently developing, trying to catch up. This instilled an us-vs-them mentality early on. But the truth is, whatever gap there was has almost completely disappeared over the past 20 years. How do we even define ‘developing’ and ‘developed?’
If we use child mortality, for example, only 13 countries could be considered ‘developing’ today. One thing’s for sure: dividing the world geographically to determine its economic, demographic, or psychological state is useless.
Lesson 2: Increasing population growth is blown out of proportion, because it’s likely to level off rather soon.
A second megamisconception, as Rosling calls these ideas that are rooted deeply, but incredibly wrong, is that of our impending doom due to exponential population growth. Books like The World Without Us elaborate on the idea that one day, nature will conceive devastating diseases and catastrophes to rid itself of the growing damage from humans. But while our growing numbers are sure a cause for concern, they might never hit apocalypse-worthy levels.
The UN’s projections for population growth see us hit 9.8 billion in 2050, and 11.2 billion in 2100. That’d be a double-up from 6.1 billion in 2000. But in 1900, there were only 1.6 billion humans, which means that in the last century, we grew fourfold, showing the growth rate is already declining . That’s because as countries get out of poverty, people tend to have fewer children. In countries like Germany, populations are even declining!
There are three biases that prevent our feelings from matching the numbers: the straight-line instinct, the fear instinct, and the size instinct. We misplace our primal fears, think trends continue in a straight line, and overestimate their size. That’s why population growth might feel like a huge threat, when actually, it’ll likely not be a big deal.
Lesson 3: The only thing that allows you to see the world as it really is is to look at everything from multiple angles.
Democracy is one of the 21st century’s most popular ideas, because in it, Western countries have thrived. But right now, most of the fastest-growing countries aren’t democratic, indicating it’s not the only political system that works. And yet, we tend to see it as the ultimate end goal for any ‘developing’ nation.
Using only a single perspective to shape our opinions might be our biggest flaw . Sometimes, you come across other viewpoints by accident, but mostly, it’s a matter of actively seeking them out. If you don’t do it, you’re once again stuck in black-and-white land. One of the best remedies, Rosling says, is travel . By exposing yourself to other cultures, you’ll naturally get access to many different points of view.
Also, when getting your information online, it’s always best to read multiple sources, not just one. It’s the equivalent of traveling around the world. Only when we surf the globe can we learn to see it as it really is, so that we may form our opinions based on facts, not feelings – and that’s what factfulness is all about.
Factfulness is only one of many books in a long, recent line of works that help us fight our biases. It delivers its research in a way that’s easy to understand and uses great examples to help us see clearly. If Bill Gates can learn something from it, I’m sure we can too.
Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account:
The 18 year old graduate, who’s just starting to regularly read the news, the 45 year old developer, who never left his town, and anyone who’s really worried about population growth.
Last Updated on August 15, 2022
*Four Minute Books participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising commissions by linking to Amazon. We also participate in other affiliate programs, such as Blinkist, MindValley, Audible, Audiobooks, Reading.FM, and others. Our referral links allow us to earn commissions (at no extra cost to you) and keep the site running. Thank you for your support.
Achieve your Goals in 2023 with the best Habits Books!
Wise words podcast now available on all major podcast channels., factfulness book summary – by hans rosling, tristan alexander, summary table of contents, podcast review.
What you will learn from reading Factfulness:
– How to update your perception of the world.
– The ability to understand statistics that are presented to you, by the media, friends, etc.
– The types of instincts that we have which inhibit us when understanding information.
- Buy Factfulness
- Read More Reviews of this book
- Quotes from Factfulness
Factfulness Book Summary:
I can’t stress enough how important I think it is to read this book!! (You can tell I’m serious if I’ve put two exclamation marks).
Hans Rosling perfectly sums up how we look at the world and how we are so easily lead astray by our instinctual minds.
Instead of thinking about a problem logically we end up reacting impulsively and therefore jumping to conclusions. It doesn’t make it any easier when we consider that media platforms such as the news and social media tend to exacerbated the problem by presenting stories in such a way to hijack our instinctual minds.
His 10 instincts are incredibly easy to follow and are accompanied with great examples from throughout his career.
Things aren’t always as bas as they seem, however without the ability to see the bigger picture it is very hard to see things for what they really are. Luckily Hans Rosling wrote this book and luckily we summarised it for you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did… P.S. savour the mind blowing moments, they’re so definitely worth it.
Introduction
People constantly and intuitively refer to an outdated worldview when thinking, guessing, or learning about the world. So, if your worldview is wrong, then you will systematically make wrong guesses.
Peoples brains systematically misinterpret the state of the world.
Our brains often jump to swift conclusions without much thinking, which, evolutionary speaking, used to help us to avoid immediate dangers.
Our quick-thinking brains and cravings for drama, our dramatic instincts are causing misconceptions and an overdramatic worldview
The Gap Instinct
It’s not the numbers that are interesting, it’s what the numbers tell us.
Only 9% of the world lives in low income countries.
Combining middle- and high-income countries make up 91% of humanity.
The world is split into four Income Levels:
Often it takes several generations for a family to move from level 1 to level 4
So why is the misconception of a gap between the rich and the poor so hard to change? Because human beings have a strong dramatic instinct towards binary thinking, a basic urge to divide things into two distinct groups
When we compare two averages, we risk misleading ourselves even more by focusing on the gap between those two single numbers and missing the overlapping spreads, the overlapping ranges of numbers, that make up each average. That is, we see gaps that are not really there.
In most cases there is no clear separation of two groups, even if it seems like that from the averages. Averages disguise spreads.
We are naturally drawn to extreme examples, and they are easy to recall
Break down statistics into the 4 income levels
When you live on level 4, everyone on level 1,2 & 3 can look equally poor, and the word poor can lose any specific meaning. Even a person on level 4 can appear poor: maybe the paint on their walls is peeling, or maybe they are driving a used car
It is natural to miss the distinctions between the people with cars, the people with motorbikes and bicycles, the people with sandals, and the people with no shoes at all.
- Beware comparisons of averages: If you could check the spreads you would probably find they overlap. There is probably no gap at all.
- Beware comparisons of extremes: In all groups, of countries of people, there are some at the top and some at the bottom. The difference is sometimes extremely unfair. But even then, the majority is usually somewhat in between, right where the gap is supposed to be (hump graph).
- The view from level 4: Picture yourself at the top of a building (level 4). It’s easy to merger level 1,2 &3 because looking down is all just one.
The Negative Instinct
Level 1 is where all of humanity started, its where the majority lived until 1966.
Beyond living memory for some reason, we avoid reminding ourselves and our children about the miseries and brutalities of the past.
Our surveillance of suffering has improved tremendously. This improved reporting is itself a sign of human progress, but it creates the impression of the exact opposite.
The news constantly alerts us to bad events in the present. The doom-laden feeling this creates in us is then intensified by our inability to remember the past; our historical knowledge is rosy and pink.
What are people really thinking when they say the world is getting worse? They’re not thinking, they’re feeling.
Things can be both bad and better . The overall situation is getting better but there are bad moments.
Constantly expect bad news.
Reporting about suffering is better than it has ever been before
- Better and Bad: practice distinguishing between a level (bad) and a direction of change (better). Convince yourself that things can be both better and bad.
- Good news is not news: Good news is almost never reported. So, news is almost always bad. When you see bad news, ask whether equally positive news would have reached you.
- Gradual improvement is not news: When a trend is gradually improving, with periodic dips, you are more likely to notice the dips then the overall improvement.
- More news does not equal more suffering: More bad news is sometimes due to better surveillance of suffering not a world getting worse.
- Beware of rosy parts: People often glorify their early experiences, and nations often glorify their histories.
The Straight-Line Instinct
The dramatic drop in babies per woman is expected to continue, as long as more people keep escaping extreme poverty, and more women get educated.
Back in the 1800 when population was at a flat level, there was a balance, it wasn’t because humans lived in balance with nature. Humans died in balance with nature.
- 1800 – extreme poverty – families having a lot of children because survival rate was low.
- 1900’s – moving out of extreme poverty – families still having a lot of children but survival rate is higher, so population increases.
- 2000’s – level 3/4 – families have less children, more educated, they know their children will survive – population flattens out.
Parents in extreme poverty need many children for children labour but also to have extra children in case some of them die.
The only proven method for curbing population growth is to eradicate extreme poverty and give people better lives.
Some things get worse when they leave form level 1 to level 2 but end up getting better towards end of level 3/4. E.g. Dental health gets worse when people leave from level 1 to level 2 because people start eating sweets a soon as they can afford them, but their governments cannot afford to prioritise public education about tooth decay until level 3.
Any two connected points look like a straight line but when we have three points we can distinguish between a straight line and start of what may be a doubling line.
- Don’t assume straight lines: Many trends do not follow straight lines but are S-bends, slides, humps, or doubling lines.
The Fear Instinct
There’s no room for fact when our minds are occupied by fear.
Imagine that we have a shield, or attention filter, most information doesn’t get through, but the holes do allow through information that appeals to our dramatic instincts. So, we end up paying attention to information that fits our dramatic instincts and ignoring information that does not. Here are some topics that easily get through our filters; earthquakes, war, refugees, disease, fire, floods, shark attacks, terror attacks. If we are not extremely careful, we can come to believe that the unusual is usual, that this is what the world looks like.
In fact, the biggest stories are often those that trigger more than one type of fear.
Without world peace you can forget about all other global progress.
Paying too much attention to what is frightening rather than what is dangerous – that is, paying too much attention to fear – creates tragic drainage of energy in the wrong direction.
- The scary world: fear vs reality. The world seems scarier than it is because what you hear about it has been selected – by your own attention filter or by the media – precisely because it is scary
- Risk = Danger x Exposure. The risk something poses to you depends not on how scared it makes you feel, but on a combination of two things. How dangerous it is? And how much you are exposed to it?
- Get calm before you carry on. When you are afraid, you see the world differently. Make as few decisions as possible until the panic has subsided.
The Size Instinct
The world cannot be understood without numbers. And it cannot be understood with numbers alone.
It is pretty much a journalist’s professional duty to make any given event, fact or number sound more important than it is.
Never believe that one number on its own can be meaningful. If you are offered one number, always ask for at least one more. Something to compare it with.
We tend to assume that all items on a list are equally important, but usually just a few of them are more important than all the others put together
Today the people living in rich countries around the North Atlantic, who represent 11% of the world population, make up 60% of the level 4 consumer market.
By 2040, 60% of level 4 consumers will live outside the West. The western domination of the world economy will soon be over.
When you see one number falling it is sometimes actually because some other background number is falling.
When we compare rates, rather than amounts, the most recent number can suddenly seem astonishingly low.
Such terrifying things really happen “here,” in this safe place where we live. But out there, they seem to happen every day. Remember, though, “out there” is the sum of a million places, while you live in just one place. Of course, more bad things happen out there: out there is much bigger than here.
- Compare. Big numbers always look big. Single numbers on their own are misleading and should make you suspicious. Always look for comparisons. Ideally, divide by something.
- 80/20. Have you been given a long list? Look for the few largest items and deal with those first. They are quite likely more important than all the others put together.
- Divide. Amounts and rates can tell very different stories. Rates are more meaningful.
The Generalisation Instinct
The number of people on level 3 will increase from 2 billion to 4 billion between now and 2040. Almost everyone in the world is becoming a consumer.
Generalising from what is normal in your home environment can be useless or even dangerous.
The majority means more than half. It could mean 51% or 99%. If possible, ask for a percentage.
Be cautious about generalising from level 4 experiences to the rest of the world
- Look for differences within groups. Especially when the groups are large, look for ways to split them into smaller, more precise categories.
- Look for similarities across groups. If you find striking similarities between different groups, consider whether your categories are relevant.
- Beware of vivid examples. Vivid images are easier to recall but they might be the exception rather than the rule.
- Assume people are not idiots. When something looks strange, be curious and humble, and think, in what ways is this a smart solution.
The Destiny Instinct
The destiny instinct Is the idea that innate characteristics determine the destinies of people, countries religions, or cultures.
The same destiny instinct also seems to make us take continuing Western progress for granted, with the West’s current economic stagnation portrayed as a temporary accident from which it will soon recover.
The Western consumer market was just a teaser for what is coming next.
To control the destiny instinct, don’t confuse slow change with no change. Don’t dismiss an annualised change – even an annual change of only 1% – because it seems too small and slow.
- Keep track of gradual improvements. A small change every year can translate to a huge change over decades.
- Update your knowledge. Some knowledge goes out of date quickly. Technology, countries, societies, cultures, and religions are constantly changing.
- Collect examples of cultural change. Challenge the idea that today’s culture must also have been yesterdays and will also be tomorrows.
The Single Perspective Instinct
We find simple ideas very attractive. We enjoy that moment of insight, we enjoy feeling we really understand or know something.
The world becomes simple. All problems have a single cause – something we must always be completely against. Or all problems have a single solution… the single perspective instinct.
But being always in favour of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective.
Though we absolutely need numbers to understand the world, we should be highly sceptical about conclusions derived purely from number crunching.
If we applied our single perspective instinct to the example of the US spending more per capita on health than any other country, we would assume they should have the longest life expectancy, however 39 countries are ahead of them.
Most countries that make great economic and social progress are not democracies.
Of the 10 countries with the fastest economic growth in the years 2012-2016, 9 of them score low on democracy.
There is no singe indicator through which we can measure the progress of a nation.
- Test your ideas. Don’t only collect examples that show how excellent your favourite ideas are. Have people who disagree with you, test your ideas and find their weaknesses.
- Limited expertise. Don’t claim expertise beyond your field, be humble about what you don’t know. Be aware too of the limits of the expertise of others.
- Hammers and nail. If you are good with a tool, you may want to use it too often. If you have analysed a problem in depth, you can end up exaggerating the importance of that problem or of the solution. Remember that no one tool is good for everything. If your favourite idea is a hammer, look for colleagues with screwdrivers, wrenches, and tape measures. Be open to new ideas from other fields.
- Love numbers for what they tell you about real lives.
- Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions. History is full of visionaries who used simple utopian visions to justify terrible actions. Welcome complexity. Combine ideas. Compromise.
The Blame Instinct
The Blame instinct makes us exaggerate the importance of individuals or of particular groups. This instinct to find a guilty party derails our ability to develop true, fact based understandings of the word: it steals our focus as we obsess about someone to blame, then blocks our learning because once we have decided who to punch in the face we stop looking for explanations elsewhere.
We tend to look for bad guys to blame, and when we go looking for a pattern, we almost always find one.
Most of the journalists and filmmakers who inform us about the world are themselves misled.
Finding someone to blame can distract us from looking at the whole system.
The blame instinct drives us to attribute more power and influence on individuals than they deserve, for bad and good.
It goes both ways, for good and bad. Either blame or reward.
The problem is that when we identify the bad guy, we are done thinking. And it’s almost always more complicated than that. It’s almost always about multiple interacting causes – a system.
- Look for causes, not villains. When something goes wrong don’t look for individuals or a group to blame. Accept that bad things can happen without anyone intending them to. Instead spend your energy on understanding the multiple interacting causes, or system, that created the situation.
- Look for systems not heroes. When someone claims to have caused good, ask whether the outcome might have happened anyway, even if that individual had done nothing. Give systems some credit.
The Urgency Instinct
When we are afraid and under time pressure and thinking of the worst case scenario, we tend to make really stupid decisions. Our ability to think analytically can be overwhelmed by an urge to make quick decisions and take immediate action.
They are deliberately triggering your urgency instinct. The call to action makes you think less critically, decide more quickly, and act now.
The urgency instinct makes us want to take immediate action in the face of perceived danger.
But now that we have eliminated most immediate dangers and are left with more complex and often abstract problems, the urgency instinct can also lead us astray when it comes to understanding the world around us.
We do not seem to have a similar instinct to act when faced with risks that are far off in the future.
This attitude toward future risk is a big problem for activists who are working on long timescales. How can they wake us up? How can they galvanise us into action? Very often, it is by convincing us that an uncertain future risk is actually a sure immediate risk.
Exaggeration undermines the credibility of well-founded data
Exaggeration, once discovered makes people tune out altogether
We should not pick the most dramatic estimates and show a worst-case scenario as if it were certain. People would find out! We should ideally show a mid-forecast, and also a range of alternative possibilities, from best to worst. If we have to round numbers, we should round to our own disadvantage. This protects our reputation and means we never give people reason to stop listening.
Hot headed claims often entrap the very activists who are using them. The activists defend them as a smart strategy to get people engaged and then forget that they are exaggerating and become stressed and unable to focus on realistic solutions.
When you merge real date, with skewed data, it ends up distorting the whole lot, and it ends up being difficult to separate the two.
Data must be used to tell the truth, not to call to action, no matter how noble the intentions.
The five global risks that are of concern are, global pandemics, financial collapse, world war, climate change and extreme poverty.
- Take a breath. When your urgency instinct is triggered, your other instincts kick in and your analysis shuts down. Ask for more time and more information. It’s rarely now or never and it’s rarely either/ or.
- Insist on data. If something is urgent and important, it should be measured. Beware of data that is relevant but inaccurate, or accurate but irrelevant. Only relevant and accurate data is useful.
- Beware of fortune tellers. Any predictions about the future is uncertain. Be wary of predictions that fail to acknowledge that. Insist on a full range of scenarios, never just the best or worst case. Ask how often such predictions have been right before.
- Be wary of drastic action. Ask what the side effects will be. Ask how the idea has been tested. Step by step practical improvements, and evaluation of their impact, are less dramatic but usually more effective
Remember More with our Factfulness Acronym
Find us on social media, wise words 2022 © all rights reserved..
Factfulness by Hans Rosling Book Summary – Review
If we would live on an ideal planet, what exactly happened would be presented in the news by journalists, and relevant backgrounds to make them even more powerful would be provided. However, in our world, grabbing the attention of readers is the job of journalists, and readers want things that are both basic and enthusiastic. Therefore, we face a distorted view of the world – a weak projection of the real world.
Please enable JavaScript
In the center of our distorted worldview lies the belief that humans in the world live in a world worse than it was before. However, this might not be beyond the truth. In reality, indigence is less seen than any time before, the lifespan of people increased, and sexist and cruel patriarchies run a smaller portion of the world.
From this brief, we can figure out the extent of the advancement that has occurred, and learn the way we can handle the negations to view the world more brightly.
Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks
Chapter 1 – Mega Misconceptions, such as discrimination of East and West, blocks our bright view of the world.
Only five percent in the US and only nine percent in the UK selected the correct choice – even some of the smartest professionals of today selected the wrong choice. The mega misconceptions and our instincts cause only these few people to have a correct insight into the world.
What constitutes “they”, ”East”, “advancing world” is unclear. Are Mexico or Japan included in “the East”? Is having modern cities still thought to be impossible for India or China?
To put it another way, we cannot talk about a difference between the “West” and “others” anymore.
Chapter 2 – Our instinct of negativity serves as a cause in other mega misconceptions.
Through these examples, we can see just a part of the excellent improvement has been accomplished – an improvement that a low number of people are conscious of. What is the reason for these plusses to be unnoticed? The instinct of negativity of us that causes another mega misconception: a gradually deteriorating world.
When compared to 1800 in which the indigence rate was 85 percent, currently this rate is 9 percent! This is an excellent improvement, however, the news would not tell about these. News tends more to show topics like catastrophes, murders, or anything depressing that deviates from the else great route of the planet.
It should be noted that, when there is dead because of a natural disaster, there is also survived the catastrophe that is not written about in the news. In reality, low- income people are more secure than at any time before with the help of new inexpensive building supplies. There is a 25 percent improvement in the percent of deaths because of catastrophes today compared to 100 years ago.
Chapter 3 – In addition to straight-line instinct, fear and size instincts are other causes that distort our worldview.
Thoughts on the world population are also in the same way: The third mega misconception we have is that this number will always increase, although we are near to the top point.
UN predictors who work on population increase report that the number of people in the world will remain the same between 2060 and 2100. The main reason among lots of others is that as prosperity increases, the birth rates will decrease.
Chapter 4 – Humans are inclined to overgeneralize and incorrectly consider some consequences are inevitable.
To overcome our most evil instincts, one of the most useful ways is to gather the correct data and understand it in its circumstances. The size of a number may mislead you to think that the world is awful when you see news about the death of 4 million babies in the past year. If you compare it with the number in 1950, you can see that it was 14.4 million, and get a better insight of today.
On the perfect planet, babies would not die – however, we need to understand the situation of the disaster to sense the advancement. Decreasing annual baby mortality by more than 10 million in approximately 70 years is an excellent advancement, and it is necessary to be acknowledged.
Besides, stopping unsupportive generalizations is necessary.
This fact is overwhelmingly impressive when we think about lots of people who did not believe that this could be possible just several ages ago. A common generalization also challenged with this fact is that people in some countries like the Middle East and Africa cannot have the necessary conditions for having these vaccines for kids and will always live in misery.
Chapter 5 – For a clear worldview, humans should look at situations from different windows rather than accusing others.
If now we travel to Afghanistan – a country that still tries to get rid of excessive poorness and the lowest income level – we can observe teenagers getting ready for contemporary living.
The truth is that our planet is very complex, so it is wise to learn to look at it from as many windows as we can. This is the reason why representing a clan or a person as the origin of an issue, as often done, is completely myopic.
Now, think about the refugee crisis. When the slipshod boats that are done by Europeans break the pieces and cause corpses to fill up the shores, the accusation was on the smugglers.
Chapter 6 – Do not make hasty judgments and overstatements; adhere to the reality in education, business, and journalism.
Thinking of all potential consequences before judging something is crucial. Always seeing the world based on the truth is important, although even people with the biggest heart consider that overstatements are beneficial.
Companies and capitalists may also use the correct view of the world for their benefit. The reality that Africa is improving in terms of business shows them the opportunity to make money. They can both support the growth of the area, and be the first to seize opportunities.
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund Book Review
Teaching the past of our planet, including the negative parts, is essential if you want your kids to regard factfulness. They should also learn recognition of unnecessary generalizations and having two opposite thoughts at the same time, like, as there are negatives, there are also things that are becoming more positive. In addition to these, the way to approach the news, how to understand if the news is extremely exaggerated, and how to keep calm and hopeful should be taught to kids.
Download Pdf
Download epub.
Recent Posts
The Business Plan Company
Now You Know.
Factfulness: gaining a better (and more hopeful) perspective of today's world.
Factfulness, by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling
The world today can seem a scary place. Many Americans share concerns about major current events and perhaps even a general concern that circumstances are growing worse in numerous ways, stability declining, and dangers rising everywhere. In 2019, a step back to look at what’s happening is daunting - from dozens of mass shootings to economic uncertainty, volatile foreign powers, cyber-threats, questionable privacy, rapidly evolving technologies, cultural dissent, and more, a sense of being scared and overwhelmed seems reasonable. But are things as bad as they seem? Swedish statistician Hans Rosling and his son Ola Rosling in their 2018 book, Factfulness , take a step back from the fray to analyze trends and data to see whether our lives are getting worse or better, and show that in the grand scheme perhaps things are better and more hopeful than mass-media-fueled majority majority of everyday people might realize.
Factfulness is about understanding how our instincts program us to exaggerate situations and distort our perception of reality in ways that further exacerbate problems and how we react to them. In his book, Rosling outlines ten of these fundamental instincts and how to combat them to cultivate shift towards a perception based in fact that will ultimately alter the way we think, feel, and behave as a result.
Here’s a summary of some key insights and lessons for building a more “factful” perspective:
(Scroll to the end for a link to the book)
Factfulness Book Summary
10 Instincts That Distort Our Perspective
1. The Gap Instinct
Summary : The tendency to divide things into distinct and often opposing groups and imagine/project some sort of gap between them (e.g. us and them).
Key Takeaways :
More than 85% of the modern world falls into what we would call in the past, the “developed” world, with most of the remaining 15% in between “developed” and “developing.” As few as 13 countries (6% of the world’s population) qualify as “developing” countries.
In addition to this, low-income countries are significantly more developed than most people think, with vastly fewer people still living in them. This means the perception of a massively divided world in which the majority remains relatively impoverished and deprived is a misconception.
The world has grown too complex to be understood in simple categories like developed versus developing, with most countries living neither as high-income or low-income but simply a middle-income majority.
The media by nature and design drastically tends to emphasize the exceptional over the ordinary
Factfulness :
The world is better understood by imagining data distributions on a bell-curve rather than as a series of opposing polarities - the majority (and accurate perception) usually exists in the middle, not as warring opposites. Polarizing our view of the world can foster an “us versus them” mentality that spills into our actions and imagines a separation “them” and “us” that in fact, does not truly exist.
2. The Negativity Instinct
Summary : The tendency to notice/emphasize the negatives over positives (or in evolutionary terms, threats versus opportunities - e.g. believing that things are getting worse when they may actually be getting better).
People’s attention naturally gravitates towards negatives over positives. Evolutionists would argue that this prioritization is a biological protective mechanism to help us recognize danger. However, this instinct can also bias us towards a more negative perception of many things than is actually true.
Mass-media can often fuel negative perception since it rewards and emphasizes that which will garner the most attention, which is more frequently negative than positive. Good news and gradual improvement don’t make for great topics, and often negative perception is owed more to surveillance of suffering than a worsening world.
As Rosling writes, “Does saying ‘things are improving’ imply that everything is fine, and we should all relax and not worry? No, not at all. Is it helpful to have to choose between bad and improving? Definitely not. It’s both. It’s both bad and better. Better, and bad, at the same time. That is how we must think about the current state of the world.”
Recognize that the media machine feeding us news prioritizes negativity by nature, but that doesn’t mean the nature of things is negative. Like with the first instinct above, the truth is most often found somewhere in the middle.
3. The Straight Line Instinct
Summary : The tendency to believe that things will continue as they have before.
We know that things change (often permanently) over time, yet we so often fallaciously believe that one aspect or another of life will remain constant.
Democracy is one of the central ideas of the 21st century and is often hailed in the West as the ultimate ideal for any political system, yet some of the fastest growing countries in the world are not democratic. What could this imply for the future of society? Another modern example is that we often seem to believe that the earth’s population is somewhat static and stable, but data reveals that the world’s population is actively growing and there is little indication of that slowing. This raises questions about how to manage natural resources and the potential implications for future generations.
Acknowledge that many things will change over time and pay attention to data that may protect you from falsely believing that some aspect of your life will continue as it has before.
4. The Fear Instinct
Summary : The tendency to pay more attention to “frightening” things.
Much like our instinct to gravitate towards negativity (see The Negativity Instinct above) and our brain’s programming to identify threats, we tend to notice things that scare us. However, this same protective instinct often leads us to exaggerate our negative perceptions, and fear left unchecked can cloud our judgement and decision-making.
The world can seem scarier and more dangerous because what you see and hear is selected, either by your own internal filters or information outlets like the news and media for the very fact that it is scary.
While reports of disasters and problems can foster an image of a daunting and dangerous world, and despite the universally growing population of people, natural disasters, plane crashes, murders, nuclear leaks, terrorism and others of the scariest threats make up less than 1% of causes of death.
In fact, natural disasters kill 75% less people than they did 100 years ago simply because less of the world lives in circumstances where the harm is of higher magnitude.
Risks should be calculated, not avoided. There is no way to eliminate risk without negating opportunity. In the same way, if we let our fear steer us we will miss many positive due to miscalculating situations.
Unbalanced, fear can lead to panic, and panic only increases risk. Don’t allow fear or scary things to overwhelm your perspective, and recognize if you are afraid and factor that into your calculations of how you act.
5. The Size Instinct
Summary : The tendency to perceive things out of proportion (especially when isolated numbers seem impressive).
We tend to misperceive scale and volume often when we base too much of our conclusions on small sample sizes and solitary bits of data. Fragmented evidence can easily lead to an inaccurate sense of proportion, which can in turn produce misdiagnoses of problems and misallocated resources and solutions.
One small data-bite/example: Polls have shown that most people estimate about 20% of basic needs met, but the correct number is actually closer to 80-90%
Numbers, while they seem straightforward and factual, can be woven to tell many stories. It’s critical to examine data in context and use numbers like pieces of a puzzle to form a complete picture.
There are two critical tools for properly contextualizing your perception: Comparing and Dividing. Compare your data and numbers with different numbers, data, and sources to gain a more accurate approximation. Dividing allows you to examine rates and ratios, and rates are often more meaningful, especially when comparing groups of different size or scale.
6. The Generalization Instinct
Summary : The tendency to generalize by categories.
Generalizing makes us susceptible to missing details and differences. Similar to the Gap Instinct, we tend to divide things into binary groups to more easily understand them, but this can also easily blind us to diversity inside and between individual groups. This is also how stereotypes are developed.
Beware of simple and exaggerated generalizations - A majority can be 51% or 99% - Be especially aware of using examples to illustrate entire groups.
Cultivate a habit of questioning your categories and noticing differences that can provide data for a new and refined understanding of things and groups.
7. The Destiny Instinct
Summary : The tendency to believe that (much like the Straight Line Instinct) that seemingly innate and past characteristics determine the “destiny” of people, things, groups, institutions, or cultures and that they will remain the same.
Small changes compound with time and trajectory. A closer look across history at changes in almost any area will show that things change radically and often given enough time.
Change at the micro-level of an individual can seem apparent, but change in groups often takes more time. It is easy to fail to fail to recognize change around us when it’s slow, but valuable to remember that small change adds up to significant difference over time.
If things seem like they’re not changing fast enough, the same rules from the Size Instinct apply: Comparing and divide
Talk to Grandpa - Simply asking about what things were like only two generations ago will surprise you with how much change is felt.
Update your knowledge - Some information changes more quickly than others. Technologies, countries, societies, cultures, and religion are constantly changing and it’s important to refresh your perspective with new knowledge.
8. The Single Perspective
Summary : The tendency to prefer simple explanations and solutions and miss differing perspectives, angles and complexities.
“Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you like to understand reality. Instead, constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, see people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world.”
“Give a child a hammer and they’ll see nails everywhere.” - The best way to avoid blind-spots and construct a factful perspective is with a toolbox, not a hammer. Our thinking should be tested from the outside by different perspectives, frameworks, and data. No one can be expected to develop a “complete” perspective alone.
Experts are often only experts in their field and tend to overestimate the problems for which they’re the solution.
Numbers, but not only numbers - “The world cannot be understood without numbers, and it cannot be understood by numbers alone.
History is filled with people who used their visions [perspective] to justify and execute terrible actions.
Factfulness involves recognizing that we cannot develop the best perspective without accounting for others. Our ideas should be tested and refined but different angles, data, and opinions.
9. The Blame Instinct
Summary : The tendency to seek simple and clear reasons for why a bad thing occurs.
People tend to look for guilty parties to blame for problems, but problems and they’re causes are often more complex than we want to realize. People are often more preoccupied with rationalizing someone’s fault and pointing fingers than truly analyzing the problem and developing a real solution.
Rosling writes, “We like to believe that things happen because someone wanted them to, that individuals have power and agency: otherwise, the world feels unpredictable, confusing, and frightening.”
Look for causes, not villains - When things go amiss, it’s almost always symptomatic of more complex issues than any one individual. Recognize that bad things occur always, and that your energy is best directed towards solving the deeper, intricate and interacting reasons underneath the surface.
Look for systems, not heroes - When something consistently works well, it is often because there is a system supporting and facilitating individuals more than any one person’s heroics. Ask just how much influence the individual can or might have had given the systems that support the outcome.
10. The Urgency Instinct
Summary : The tendency to take immediate actions in response to perceived danger or threats, and in doing so, amplify our other instincts.
Taking immediate action in the face of oncoming physical danger is a helpful instinct that has enabled us to survive. Yet, the problems and threats of the modern world are most often slower and more complex than an attacking lion or angry enemy. As such, abstract problems require more complex solutions, and reacting with too much urgency and force can lead to bad decisions and outcomes.
Urgency can be helpful, but it can also amplify all of our other biases, instincts, and reactions and lead us to make mistakes in panic. When urgency clouds your thinking, take a deep breath, examine the data, think analytically, and beware of predictions that fail to account for uncertainty and complexity.
Rapid Business Plans
Prior Business Consulting provides business plans, consulting, business coaching and financial analysis to small businesses.
About Rapid Business Plans
Headquartered in Jacksonville on Florida's First Coast, Rapid Business Plans is a team of entrepreneurial experts dedicated to your success!
Follow Bethany McClellan on LinkedIn
SBA 7(a) Business Plans | SBA 504 Business Plans | USDA Business Plans | Investor Visa Immigration Business Plans | Financial Projections | Leaseholder Business Plans
2023 © Rapid Business Plans, a Division of Prior Business Consulting | Site by John Darabos
Accessibility Policy Prior Business Consulting, LLC d/b/a Rapid Business Plans is committed to keeping our site accessible to everyone. We welcome feedback on ways to improve this site’s accessibility.
Book Summary: Factfulness by Hans Rosling
Book Summary: The Key Ideas
#1: The Four Levels of Income: Our continued division of the world into “developed” and “developing” countries ignores the convergence in data we have seen over the last few decades. The real picture calls for a worldview based on four income levels.
#2: Our Ten Overdramatic Instincts: We systematically overestimate how bad things are and underestimate how much they have improved. Rosling believes this is driven by 10 innate “overdramatic instincts”, from the way in which fear, urgency and negativity rule over our worldviews, to our tendency to generalise and seek single causes and solutions.
Book Notes: The Key Ideas in Detail
Premise of the book.
Hans Rosling was a Swedish physician and academic with a passion for using data to explore global development issues. Factfulness was posthumously published and co-authored by his son, Ola Rosling, and daughter-in-law, Anna Rosling Rönnlund.
The book focuses on the idea that we systematically overestimate how bad the world is on many of the most important metrics, such as poverty, violence and income. Rosling believes this overdramatic worldview is mainly the result of 10 innate “overdramatic instincts”.
Factfulness is an attempted antidote to these instincts, demonstrating how our approach to facts and data can counter these innate biases.
Key Idea #1: The Four Levels of Income
Rosling has surveyed thousands of people from a wide range of professions and nationalities, finding that we systematically underestimate how developed low-income countries are.
The problem, he suggests, is that we tend to hold a view of a divide between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries that made more sense a few decades ago. Now, however, this divided view simply doesn’t reflect the huge convergence in data we have seen since as a result of improving conditions across the world.
As Rosling puts it: “ The world used to be divided in two but isn’t any longer. Today, most people are in the middle.”
Rosling suggests a more relevant worldview should instead see the world in four income levels.
- Level 1: $1 per day
- Level 2: $2-$8 per day
- Level 3: $8-$32 per day
- Level 4: $32+ per day
Moving from one to another isn’t easy. As Rosling notes, often it takes several generations for a family to move through the levels from Level 1 to Level 4. But just 200 years ago, 85% of people were on Level 1.
The idea of the four levels of income shapes many of the discussion points that follow in the book.
Key Idea #2: The Ten Overdramatic Instincts
Instinct 1: the gap instinct.
Definition: The gap instinct is our tendency to divide things into two distinct and often conflicting groups, missing the gap between.
Example: We tend to divide countries into ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ countries, but the data shows this view is no longer fit for purpose on measures of income, education, healthcare, and so on.
How to control it:
- Be careful when comparing averages and extremes
- Be cautious of the view from the top: From Level 4, Level 1, 2 and 3 are all “poor”, but there is a considerable difference in the impact on someone’s life between Level 1 and Level 3.
- Look for the majority.
Instinct 2: The Negativity Instinct
Definition: The negativity instinct is our tendency to notice the bad more than the good.
Example: The majority of people think the world is getting worse, but the reality is very different. The proportion of people living in extreme poverty has almost halved in the last 20 years. We’ve also seen tremendous progress on life expectancies. No country in the world now has a life expectancy below 50.
- Accept things can be better and bad at the same time: There are huge problems in the world, but this shouldn’t smokescreen the fact we have made rapid progress.
- Expect bad news: The media rarely report the positive side.
- Don’t censor or rewrite the past: We have a tendency to misremember the past, which dampens the progress that has been made.
Instinct 3: The Straight-Line Instinct
Definition: The straight-line instinct is our tendency to assume linear trends in data will continue in a straight line.
Example(s): We the rate of growth in the world population will continue, not realising that there are 2 billion children today and the UN forecasts there will be 2 billion children in 2100. We therefore need to understand how the number of children decreases as we move up the income levels.
How to Control It:
- Recognise curves come in a variety of shapes and sizes – e.g. doubling
Instinct 4: The Fear Instinct
“The image of a dangerous world has never been broadcast more effectively than it is now, while the world has never been less violent and more safe.”
Definition: The fear instinct is our tendency to overestimate risks due to our natural fears of factors such as violence, captivity and contamination.
Example: Rosling runs through a range of areas in which risks have drastically reduced, such as the number of deaths from natural disasters, flight safety and contamination.
- Calculate the risks: Understand the real picture from the data.
- Minimise decisions when in a state of fear
Instinct 5: The Size Instinct
Definition: The size instinct is our tendency to look at a lonely number (or a single instance or victim) and misjudge its importance.
Example: Rosling uses the example of child deaths in hospital drawing attention away from the issue of systems that kill far more outside of the hospital in the first place.
- Compare the numbers: We should avoid lonely numbers – especially emotionally-charged ones – and instead look at the broader context.
- Use the 80/20 rule: Divide and understand where 80% of the total comes from.
- Divide: Put figures into context by using rates, e.g. per capita.
Instinct 6: The Generalisation Instinct
Definition: The generalisation instinct is our tendency to generalise groups of individuals and countries, even if there are significant differences between them.
Example: Those in the Level 4 income group tend to generalise those in groups below as worse off than they really are.
- Travel: Experience other cultures and countries different to your own.
- Find better categories: Think of how life really differs on Levels 1, 2, 3 and 4.
- Question your categories: Look for differences and exceptions in groups and beware of generalising from one group to another.
Instinct 7: The Destiny Instinct
Definition: The destiny instinct is our tendency to assume innate characteristics determine the destinies of people, countries, religions and cultures.
Example: The perception that Africa is not capable of far-reaching economic progress is not based on the facts of the last four decades.
- Recognise that slow change isn’t the same as no change
- Stay open to new data and be prepared to refresh knowledge
- Compare your values to your parents and your grandparents.
Instinct 8: The Single Perspective Instinct
“A single perspective can limit your imagination.”
Definition: The single perspective instinct is our tendency to prefer single causes and single solutions.
Example: Political ideologues can get fixated on one form of economic system, but a one-size-fits-all approach to our economic and political systems is rarely the most effective.
- Test your ideas for weaknesses
- Recognise the limits of your expertise
- Avoid the trap of exaggerated to benefit your cause
- Beware of simple ideas and solutions
Instinct 9: The Blame Instinct
Definition: The blame instinct is our need to find a clear and simple reason for why something bad has happened.
Example: The media is constantly looking for a single scapegoat for negative stories, but often these negative stories are the result of much more complex underlying systems.
- Resist the temptation to find a scapegoat
- Focus instead on the underlying systems
Instinct 10: The Urgency Instinct
“The overdramatic worldview in people’s heads creates a constant sense of crisis and stress.”
Definition: The urgency instinct is our need to take immediate action in face of perceived danger.
Example: Rosling uses the example of worst-case climate change and epidemiological data being used to create a sense of urgency, but ultimately such exaggerations undermine the cause.
- Take a breath
- Insist on seeing the data
- Beware of fortune tellers
- Be wary of drastic action
You can buy the book here or you can find more of our book notes here . For further related reading, check out Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.
Sponsored links below (if any). Clicking is one way of saying thanks for the article!
Get More Book Summaries Straight to Your Inbox
The 3-thinking newsletter.
Concise insights, delivered once per week.
Join the growing army of 3-Thinkers. It’s free!
No cost. No spam. No nonsense. Unsubscribe any time if it doesn’t bring you value.
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. By using the website, you agree to our Privacy Policy .
- Skip to main content
Free Book Summaries and Audiobooks
Factfulness Summary and Review | Hans Rosling
posted on April 7, 2021
Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About The World – And Why Things Are Better Than You Think
Life gets busy. Has Factfulness been gathering dust on your bookshelf? Instead, pick up some of the key ideas now.
We’re scratching the surface here. If you don’t already have the book, order the book or get the audiobook for free on Amazon to learn the juicy details.
Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling Rönnlund’s Perspective
Hans Rosling was a Swedish physician, academic, and public speaker. Alongside Anna, Hans founded the Gapminder Foundation and developed the Trendalyzer software system. Hans advocated for data analysis as a way of exploring development issues.
Ola Rosling is Hans Rosling’s son. Ola specializes in statistics and is known for his work with Gapminder on changing the global quality of life. He is currently the chairman, director, and co-founder of the Gapminder Foundation.
Anna Rosling Rönnlund is a Swedish designer who developed Trendalyzer alongside the other two authors of this book. She is currently the vice president for design and usability at Tendalyzer. Plus, she is the founder of Dollar Street. Dollar Street is a website that helps people visualize different streets of homes. This website helps people better understand how different cultures and incomes live around the world.
Introduction
Factfulness is a posthumous book by statistician and physician Hans Rosling. This book is co-written with his son, Ola Rosling, and his daughter-in-law, Anna Rosling Rönnlund. The premise of the book is that most humans are wrong about the state of the world. We all exaggerate the negatives in the world. We believe the world is poorer, less healthy, and more dangerous than the statistics suggest. Instead of dividing the world into developed/developing, Hans suggests we should have four income brackets. Plus, he outlines ten instincts that prevent the human race from progressing. This book became an international bestseller and was recommended by Bill Gates as one of his five best books of 2018.
“Think about the world. War, violence, natural disasters, man-made disasters, corruption. Things are bad, and it feels like they are getting worse, right? The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer; and the number of poor just keeps increasing; and we will soon run out of resources unless we do something drastic. At least that’s the picture that most Westerners see in the media and carry around in their heads. I call it the overdramatic worldview. It’s stressful and misleading. In fact, the vast majority of the world’s population lives somewhere in the middle of the income scale. Perhaps they are not what we think of as middle class, but they are not living in extreme poverty. Their girls go to school, their children get vaccinated, they live in two-child families, and they want to go abroad on holiday, not as refugees. Step-by-step, year-by-year, the world is improving. Not on every single measure every single year, but as a rule. Though the world faces huge challenges, we have made tremendous progress. This is the fact-based worldview.” – Hans Rosling
What Is Factfulness?
Factfulness is the stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strongly supported facts. It is a set of tools that will help you process information.
The Gap Instinct
“Eighty-five percent of mankind is already inside the box that used to be named ‘developed world.’ The remaining 15 percent are mostly in between the two boxes. Only 13 countries, representing 6 percent of the world population, are still inside the ‘developing’ box.” – Hans Rosling
The gap instinct relates to how we tend to divide subjects into two groups. We exaggerate the gap between these two groups by giving them labels like good vs. evil and rich vs. poor. The most prominent example of the gap instinct is how we identify countries as either developed or developing. These are labels introduced in the 1960s. This type of instinct is an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality.
The reality of the developed and developing labeling is that most people live in the middle now. There is no clear gap between developed and developing countries. Therefore, it is better to place them into four income levels. Level 1 would include the most extreme poverty, and level 4 would include the most developed.
“Low-income countries are much more developed than most people think. And vastly fewer people live in them. The idea of a divided world with a majority stuck in misery and deprivation is an illusion. A complete misconception. Simply wrong.” – Hans Rosling
To adopt a Factfulness approach, we must accept that most of our firsthand experiences are from level 4. Then, our secondhand experiences of other levels are based on our mass media. The mass media will always report on extraordinary events. Hence, our view of other levels will never be reality.
The authors outline three warning signs that trigger your gap instinct:
- If you compare averages, you will produce gaps. However, there is often significant overlap in wealth between countries
- If you compare extremes, you are not showing the majority of people in a country
- If you are living in level 4, then everyone appears much poorer than you
To control the Gap Instinct, we should look for the majority.
The Negativity Instinct
“Does saying “things are improving” imply that everything is fine, and we should all relax and not worry? No, not at all. Is it helpful to have to choose between bad and improving? Definitely not. It’s both. It’s both bad and better. Better, and bad, at the same time. That is how we must think about the current state of the world.” – Hans Rosling
Secondly, as humans, we naturally focus more on the bad than the good. Hence, we also believe the world is getting worse. This is not the case. Instead, we misremember the past. Plus, journalists selectively report negative stories. Finally, we tend to respond with feelings instead of facts. This focus on feelings means we feel uncomfortable saying the world is getting better. We feel uncomfortable because bad things are still happening.
We need to overcome this negative instinct by accepting that bad things happen but that the world can and is still improving. We must not let negative stories that seek to grab our attention warp the world’s reality. Plus, we must not look back at the past as if it was perfect. Many bad things happened in the past, and we should consider how things have improved. The authors provide 16 examples of bad things that have decreased over time:
- Legal Slavery
- Expensive Solar Panels
- HIV Infections
- Children Dying
- Battle Deaths
- Death Penalty
- Leaded Gasoline
- Plane Crash Deaths
- Child Labor
- Deaths from Disaster
- Nuclear Arms
- Smoke Particles
- Ozone Depletion
Plus, they also provide 16 examples of positive things that have become more common over time:
- Protected Nature
- Women’s Right to Vote
- Child Cancer Survival
- Girls in School
- Monitored Species
- Electricity Coverage
- Mobile Phones
- Water from Protected Sources
- Immunization
The reason we struggle to see the world as improving is that matters are often only improving gradually. Hence, we often do not hear about these improvements. To control the negativity instinct, you should expect bad news.
- The Straight Line Instinct
As humans, we often wrongly assume incidents in the world should move in a straight, linear direction. We expect that improvement in the world must mean constant improvement with no dips. However, multiple factors impact the trend.
The best way for us to control this error-filled instinct is to remember that curves can come in all shapes and sizes. We must also accept that straight lines are far less common than we think. If you have two points and connect them, you’ll have a straight line. However, add any third point that is not perfectly in-line with these points, and you have a curve.
The issue with this misconception is that it assumes that things are a certain way. It also assumes that drastic action is required to change an upward or downward trend. Instead, if we look at the data as a curve, we can see dips in an upward trend. We can learn from these dips and view them as opportunities to learn.
To control the Straight Line instinct, you must remember that curves come in different shapes.
- The Fear Instinct
“Critical thinking is always difficult, but it’s almost impossible when we are scared. There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.” – Hans Rosling
Fear was and is hugely important for our survival. However, fear is not useful when considering data. When we are afraid, we have a warped view of the world. Specifically, we tend to generate worst-case scenarios when provided with data. Evolutionarily we had to respond to all threats with a ‘worst-case scenario’ approach. This approach to fear helped us survive as a species but now makes us overestimate problems. However, this approach is unhelpful when we are attempting to utilize critical thinking.
The media’s portrayal of events encourages this fearful way of thinking. The news will broadcast the dangers of the world. However, the reality is that bad things still happen. That said, the outcomes of these bad things are far less severe than they used to be. This is not reported. Far fewer people are killed today than in the past. Natural disasters are not less common, but fewer people die of them as we are better equipped. The events that strike the most fear into us are some of the least common events: plane crashes, murders, nuclear leaks, and terrorism. These events account for less than 1% of deaths per year. In 2016, 40 million commercial passenger flights landed. Ten of these ended in fatal accidents. However, those ten are the ones journalists will report.
To control the fear instinct, calculate the risks.
“The image of a dangerous world has never been broadcast more effectively than it is now, while the world has never been less violent and more safe.” – Hans Rosling
- The Size Instinct
“The two aspects of the size instinct, together with the negativity instinct, make us systematically underestimate the progress that has been made in the world.” – Hans Rosling
We tend to overestimate the importance of single events or people. The authors provide an example of how people often attribute improvements in child mortality to improvements in doctors and hospitals. We view fewer children dying as doctors saving more lives. However, the data would suggest that almost all the increases in child survival rates are attributable to preventative measures outside the hospital.
As humans, we like to make a narrative out of individual data points. The media preys on this instinct and will make a single event or fact sound more critical than it is. To overcome the size instinct, it is essential to provide the event or fact with context. You can produce context by comparing this event to other examples.
Additionally, if we are provided with a large number, we will often attribute more importance to it. This is because we struggle to understand large numbers. Therefore, to make the number more meaningful, you should always divide the total by another number. For example, you can divide by the total population; the new number will now apply to a person.
To control the Size Instinct, get things in proportion and search for comparisons.
“To avoid getting things out of proportion you need only two magic tools: comparing and dividing.” – Hans Rosling
- The Generalization Instinct
“[The generalization instinct] can make us mistakenly group together things, or people, or countries that are actually very different. It can make us assume everything or everyone in one category is similar. And, maybe most unfortunate of all, it can make us jump to conclusions about a whole category based on a few, or even just one, unusual example.” – Hans Rosling
People automatically generalize individual data points. We use stereotypes as a way to structure our thoughts, and they are generally very useful. However, this instinct can also warp our view of the world.
Firstly, our instinct to generalize can lead to us mistakenly grouping items that are very different—for example, linking two countries together.
Secondly, this instinct can make us believe that everybody within one category is the same or very similar. This, coupled with making us jump to conclusions about an entire category based on one example, underpins issues like racial prejudice.
The best way for you to beat this instinct is to experience new places and people. If you travel to new countries and visit their real homes, you will understand we are all unique. Anna’s Dollar Street website points out this idea. People with the same earnings will have different cultures and different family dynamics.
To control the Generalization Instinct, you should question your categories.
- The Destiny Instinct
This instinct is related to how we assume people, countries, religions, or cultures are destined to be a certain way. This instinct is based on our understanding of innate characteristics. Basing our understanding of others on these innate characteristics leads to us believing that things can never change.
The destiny instinct also makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. We used to live in surroundings that would not change much; the only changes were seasonal ones. Therefore, associating a group with destiny was one of the few ways to unite a group. However, societies are no longer like this. We have ever-changing environments and many circumstances we can connect over.
Additionally, we must remember that change is often slow. Things may appear destined, but that is merely because we struggle to notice small changes. Societies and cultures are in constant movement. Therefore, try to keep track of gradual improvements. If you struggle to understand how things change over time, try to look at your parents’ or grandparents’ views. You will most likely see a tremendous difference, and this is due to small gradual changes.
To control the Destiny Instinct, stay open to new data and remember that slow change is still change.
- The Single Perspective Instinct
“Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you like to understand reality. Instead, constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, see people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world.” – Hans Rosling
Instead of adopting or considering multiple perspectives, we are always focused on single causes or solutions. Focusing on single causes makes us feel like our problems are easier to solve. However, this leads to a misunderstanding of the world. We will get a more accurate understanding of problems if we consider multiple perspectives and weigh up which has the most validity.
To overcome the single perspective instinct, you should always be testing ideas to see where they fall short. You should not reject new information that doesn’t fit your current viewpoint. Instead, be curious about this new information and identify if your ideas should change based on this new information. On top of this, you should actively seek out people who have different viewpoints than you. Having these people in your life will hugely improve your understanding of the world.
Finally, the authors encourage you to sometimes look beyond numbers. Data does have its limits, and real-life proof of concepts can be necessary when searching for solutions. The world is complex, and our problems and solutions should reflect that.
To control the Single Perspective Instinct, you should get a toolbox rather than just a hammer. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- The Blame Instinct
“The blame instinct makes us exaggerate the importance of individuals or of particular groups. This instinct to find a guilty party derails our ability to develop a true, fact-based understanding of the world: it steals our focus as we obsess about someone to blame, then blocks our learning because once we have decided who to [blame] we stop looking for explanations elsewhere. This undermines our ability to solve the problem or prevent it from happening again because we are stuck with over simplistic finger-pointing, which distracts us from the more complex truth and prevents us from focusing our energy in the right places.” – Hans Rosling
The blame instinct is our instinct to find a clear reason for why something bad has happened. We tend to attribute bad things happening to bad individuals or intentions. This is another example of humans trying to find patterns. We try to find a reason for why something has happened. The blame instinct is our way of dealing with the unpredictable, confusing, and frightening nature of the world.
One of the most significant issues with our blame instinct is that we exaggerate the importance of individuals or groups in adverse events. This blocks us from seeking more viable explanations of or solutions to the problem. In reality, most unpleasant events are a combination of many interacting causes. The authors call this the system. Therefore, we should be looking at systems rather than individual people or groups.
To control the Blame Instinct, you should recognize when a scapegoat is being used and resist using scapegoats yourself. Plus, you should look for causes instead of villains and systems instead of heroes.
- The Urgency Instinct
The urgency instinct is the instinct that makes us want to take action as soon as we perceive a danger. The issue with this instinct is it makes us stressed. Stress amplifies our other instincts and blocks us from thinking analytically. Finally, stress makes us take drastic actions that we would never normally consider.
Some problems are urgent, and we should work together to solve them. These are global pandemics, financial collapses, world wars, climate change, and extreme poverty. If the problem does not fall under these categories, then urgency will only cloud your judgments.
One way to deal with the urgency instinct is to give yourself more time and provide yourself with more information. Additionally, be careful when considering predictions.
So, to control the Urgency Instinct, take small steps and insist on getting the data.
“This is data as you have never known it: it is data as therapy. It is understanding as a source of mental peace. Because the world is not as dramatic as it seems. Factfulness, like a healthy diet and regular exercise, can and should become part of your daily life. Start to practice it, and you will be able to replace your overdramatic worldview with a worldview based on facts. You will be able to get the world right without learning it by heart. You will make better decisions, stay alert to real dangers and possibilities, and avoid being constantly stressed about the wrong things.” – Hans Rosling
Final Summary and Review of Factfulness
The authors admit that many bad events still occur. In fact, many of the bad things of the past still exist. That said, these bad things are generally less severe than they used to be. So, there is hope for the future. Despite this, humans tend to place more attention on the bad things because of ten instincts that we must challenge. These instincts are:
- The Gap Instinct
- The Negativity Instinct
We rate this book 4.5/5.
Factfulness PDF, Free Audiobook, Infographic and Animated Book Summary
Comment below and let others know what you have learned or if you have any other thoughts.
New to StoryShots? Get the audio and animated versions of this summary and hundreds of other bestselling nonfiction books in our free top-ranking app. It’s been featured by Apple, The Guardian, The UN, and Google as one of the world’s best reading and learning apps.
To dive into the details, order the book or get the audiobook for free .
Related Book Summaries
Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
How Not to Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg
Abundance by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Everything is F*cked by Mark Manson
Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt
Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Share to show you care
Reader Interactions
Leave a reply cancel reply.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .
Sep 26, 2018
Summary and notes on Factfulness
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think is a 2018 book by Hans Rosling . In what is arguably his most influential book, completed and released posthumously after a long and successful career as one of the foremost thinkers in public health and statistics, Rosling suggests the vast majority of human beings are wrong about the state of the world, perceiving it to be poorer, less healthy and more dangerous than it is.
The book was a worldwide best-seller, currently ranked #1 in Statistics at Amazon, as well as being featured on several books recommendation lists by Barack Obama, Bill Gates, among others. Bill Gates in particular was so fond of the book he’s giving out a free copy to every college graduate . He had this to say about it:
“One of the most important books I’ve ever read — an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” — Bill Gates
After reading, I agree it was one of the best so far this year, although I wouldn’t say it comes without its flaws (check my other stories). However, I found it objectively informative enough to warrant some notes-taking and trimming it down to the key concepts for later consultation, eventually becoming this summary. The upcoming sections will follow the chapters structure of the book, answering the survey questions along the way and complemented with some notes I added. I’m sharing it with the hope someone will find it as useful as I do.
The Gap Instinct
The instinct to divide all kinds of things into two distinct and often conflicting groups (binary thinking), with an imagined gap in-between (e.g. rich vs poor countries).
Question 1: In all low-income countries across the world today, how many girls finish primary school? Answer : 60 percent . Question 2: Where does the majority of the world population live? Answer : Middle-income .
- Only 9% of the world lives in low-income countries. 75% in middle-income. 16% in high-income.
- 4 modern income levels: a) 1 billion people — 1$ per day / 5 babies per woman; b) 3 billion — 4$ a day; c) 2 billion — 16$ per day; d) 1 billion — more than 64$ per day. Majority of humans lived in level 1 until 1966.
- Triggers for gap instinct: a) comparisons of averages: misleading for not revealing the spread and creating virtual gap (e.g. men vs women math scores); b) comparison of extremes (e.g. Brazil has very rich and very poor, but the share total of Brazil richest 10% has been decreasing and most of the people are in the middle-income levels); c) “the view from up here”: poverty in a 4 level country is relative poverty, not extreme poverty (level 1 countries) which seems incomprehensible to those in level 4.
The Negativity Instinct
The instinct to notice the bad more than the good.
Question 3: In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has… Answer: almost halved . Question 4: What is the life expectancy of the world today? Answer: 72 .
- People live on average ten years longer now than in 1973 (life expectancy was 60). The dip of life expectancy in the 1960s was due to 15–40 million deaths in China due to famine (mix of bad harvest and poor government policy).
- Contributing factors to this instinct include: a) misremembering the past; b) selective reporting by journalists and activists as gradual improvements don’t make news which creates illusion of deterioration (e.g. share of people who keep thinking crime goes up vs reported crimes); and c) feeling that as long as things are bad, it’s heartless to say they’re getting better.
- 16 bad things decreasing: legal slavery, oil spills, expensive solar panels, HIV infections, children dying, battle deaths, death penalty, leaded gasoline, plane crash deaths, child labor, deaths from disaster, nuclear arms, smallpox, smoke particles, ozone depletion and hunger.
- 16 good things increasing: new movies, protected nature, women’s right to vote, new music, science, harvest, literacy, democracy, child cancer survival, girls in school, monitored species, electricity coverage, mobile phones, water, internet and immunisation.
- Strategies to control the instinct: a) distinguish between level and direction of change, things can both be bad and better; b) good or gradual improvement news are almost never reported; c) more news isn’t equal to more suffering, just improved reporting and surveillance; d) beware of censored history or rosy pasts.
The Straight Line Instinct
The instinct of assuming lines will just continue straight. Many aspects of the world are best represented by curves shaped like an S, or a slide, or a hump, and not by a straight line (e.g. population growth).
Question 5: There are 2 billion children in the world today, aged 0 to 15 years old. How many children will there be in the year 2100, according to the UN? Answer: 2 billion children, same as today. Question 6: The UN predicts that by 2100 the world population will have increased by another 4 billion people. What is the main reason? Answer: There will be more adults .
- UN Scientists believe the population growth curve will flatten out between 10 and 12 billion people by the end of century. The reasoning behind it is that the number of babies per woman is decreasing as extreme poverty and child mortality also decreases, as well as education and access to contraceptives increase. By 2100 world life expectancy is also expected to increase around 11 years.
- Before 1800, women had on average 6 babies, but 4 out of these wouldn’t survive. Nowadays couples have average 2 (levels 2, 3 and 4) and all survive. Since in terms of net population the difference is the same, the recent growth explosion was due to the transition from one stage to another.
- Trends types across the 4 levels: a) straight curve — e.g. wealth x health; b) s-bends — e.g. income x vaccination; c) slides — e.g. babies per woman x income; d) humps — e.g. dental health or car accidents; e) doubling lines — e.g. income x distance travelled.
The Fear Instinct
The instinct that makes us give our attention and overestimate the unlikely dangers that we are most afraid of, and neglect what is actually most risky.
Question 7: How did the number of deaths per year from natural disasters change over the last hundred years? Answer: Decreased to less than half.
- The image of a dangerous world has never been broadcasted more effectively than it is now, while the world has never been less violent and safer. Natural disasters (0.1% of all deaths), plane crashes (0.001%), murders (0.7%), nuclear leaks (0%) and terrorism (0.5%) still get a lot of media attention, when none of them kill more than 1%.
- The reason natural disasters kill less people — 25% to what it was 100 years ago (and population is growing) — it’s because less live in level 1 where the harm is of significant magnitude.
The Size Instinct
The instinct to get things out of proportion when isolated numbers seem impressive.
Question 8: There are roughly 7 billion people in the world today. Which is the distribution among continents? Answer: 1 billion in Americas, 1 billion in Europe, 1 billion in Africa, 4 billion in Asia .
- By the end of this century, it is expected that Africa will have 3 more billion people, and 1 more billion in Asia. By 2040, 60% of level 4 consumers will live outside the West.
- People think 20% of people have basic needs met. Correct answer is closer to 80–90%.
- To avoid this instinct: a) compare the numbers, e.g. “last year 4.2 million babies die”… but how about previous years? b) 80/20 rule — what causes 80% of the total? c) divide the numbers by totals to get rates.
The Generalisation Instinct
The instinct to recognise when a category is being used to explain something.
Question 9: How many of the world’s 1-year-old children today have been vaccinated against some disease? Answer: 80%.
- Beware of exceptional examples to make a point about whole group (e.g. chemophobia) and the “majority” which can either be 51% or 99%. Do not assume people are idiots, always consider the smart solution angle.
- To make vaccination possible a cool chain is required (logistic distribution paths with refrigeration), which in turn requires basic infrastructure for transport, electricity, education and healthcare. However, whereas 88% of children is vaccinated, major financial investors think only 20% is, which shows they could be missing out on huge investment opportunities for underestimating countries infrastructure.
The Destiny Instinct
The instinct that innate characteristics determine the destinies of people, countries, religions or cultures, for things are as they are and will never change.
Question 10: Worldwide, 30-year-old men have spent 10 years in school, on average. How many years have women of the same age spent in school? Answer: 9 years.
- Some large African countries — Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Egypt — have life expectancies above the world average (72 years). “African countries” is a generalisation that falls short, life expectancy being an example.
- The link between religion and number of babies per woman is overstated, unlike income. Muslim have on average 3.1 children, Christian 2.7. Values aren’t strictly connected to religion or culture in the way they become immutable.
- Changes that seem small and slow add up over time: 1 percent growth each year seems slow but adds up to a doubling in 70 years. Don’t confuse slow change with no change.
The Single Perspective Instinct
The instinct for preferring single and simple causes and solutions, ignoring different angles and complexity (e.g. government interference in blocking free markets, resources distribution in inequality).
Question 11: In 1996, tigers, giant pandas, and black rhinos were all listed as endangered. How many of these three species are more critically endangered today? Answer: None of them .
- Experts are often experts only in their field, and they tend to exaggerate the problems for which they’re the solution — the Shirky principle. “Give a child a hammer and they’ll see nails everywhere”.
- There are many examples of how we misinterpret what is the correct solution for a problem — e.g. educating medical professionals when the problem are lack of roads towards hospitals; or more and better textbooks when it’s the lack of electricity preventing homework being done.
- The US spends more per capita on health care than any other country in the world, but 39 countries have longer life expectancies.
- South Korea moved from level 1 to level 3 faster than any country had ever done without finding oil, all the time as a military dictatorship. Of the ten countries with the fastest economic growth in 2016, nine of them score low on democracy. Democracy is better thought as a goal rather than a requirement to development.
- The world cannot be understood without numbers and it cannot be understood with numbers alone.
The Blame Instinct
The instinct to find a clear, simple reason for why something bad has happened. Blaming individuals often steals focus from other explanations and blocks ability to prevent similar problems in the future.
Question 12: How many people in the world have some access to electricity? Answer: 80 percent.
- We often blame China and India for pollution but for example Canada’s per capita CO2 emissions are twice as high as China and eight times as high as India.
- The drop in China from 6 to 3 babies per woman happened 10 years before one-child policy by Mao. During the 36 years in place, the number never fell below 1.5 although it did in many other countries without enforcement, like South Korea and Hong Kong (even below on this).
- The same instinct is triggered when things go well (“claim”). We are very quickly to give credit to an individual or simple cause, when reality is more complex.
- When things go wrong, look for causes, not villains. When things go well, look for systems, not heroes.
The Urgency Instinct
The instinct to make bad decisions under time pressure as the ability to think analytically is overwhelmed by an urge to make quick decisions and take immediate action.
Question 13: Global climate experts believe that, over the next 100 years, the average temperature will… Answer: Get warmer .
- We are the offspring of those who decided and acted quickly with insufficient information. Today we still need the urgency instinct but since we have eliminated most immediate dangers and are left with more complex and often more abstract problems, this instinct can also lead us astray when it comes to our understanding the world around us.
- To control the urgency instinct: a) take a breath, prevent this instinct from shutting down your analytical thinking; b) look at the data; c) distrust future predictions that don’t acknowledge a degree of uncertainty or consider scenarios besides best and worse cases; d) favour little improvements over time rather than drastic actions.
More from Manuel Saraiva
Human. This. That. A- blood type. Dragon zodiac. Featured on NatGeo’s “4 Billion Under 30”.
About Help Terms Privacy
Get the Medium app
Manuel Saraiva
Text to speech
Enter the characters you see below
Sorry, we just need to make sure you're not a robot. For best results, please make sure your browser is accepting cookies.
Type the characters you see in this image:
Learning Cube
[Book Summary] Factfulness, by Hans Rosling
Ten reasons we're wrong about the world - and why things are better than you think.
Written by the Swedish statistician and physician, Hans Rosling , in company with his daughter-in-law and son, Anna and Ola, this book argues that, despite the many challenges facing the world today, the situation over the last decades has improved tremendously. The authors claim that most people have a negativity bias when it comes to perceiving the state of the world, and that we tend to overestimate the problems and underestimate the progress . You can check your own biases here !
Hans argues that by embracing factfulness , that is, a more data-driven view of the world, we can make better decisions and lead more fulfilling lives. The book is based on Hans' extensive experience as a global health researcher and his expertise in data analysis and presentation at Gapminder . It provides a compelling argument for why we need to change the way we think about the world and how we can do so.
The book is divided in ten main parts, each of which presents the idea of a negativity bias towards the world and its evolution. Let’s get into it!
The Gap Instinct
The first instinct, called The Gap, focuses on the idea that we tend to see the world in terms of dichotomies : rich vs. poor, or developed vs. developing. Hans argues that this way of thinking oversimplifies the reality of the world and leads us to make incorrect assumptions about the state of the world and the people who live in it. And as example, he points out that when we think about the world in terms of rich vs. poor, we often assume that people in poor countries are all equally poor, when that’s definitely not the case.
The author also argues that when we think about the world in terms of developed vs. developing, we tend to overlook the fact that many so-called developing countries are making rapid progress and that the gap between the developed and developing world is narrowing . As example, he cites countries like China and India, which have made incredibly fast progress in recent decades, and are now among the largest economies in the world.
In summary, we tend to see the world in terms of dichotomies, that lead us to oversimplify the reality of the world and to overlook important trends and patterns.
The Negativity Instinct
As we mentioned at the beginning of this post, we tend to have a negativity bias when it comes to perceiving the state of the world . What this negativity does is for us to overestimate the problems and challenges facing the world and to underestimate the progress that has been made. Take wars, for instance. We generally assume that these events are becoming more frequent and more severe but, in reality, the data shows that the number of wars and the number of people killed in wars has been decreasing over time.
This negativity, on the other hand, leads us to focus on the things that are going wrong in the world, while ignoring the many things that are going right. And the facts are the facts: people are living longer, fewer children are dying, and more people have access to education, healthcare, and other basic necessities.
The Straight Line Instinct
As humans, we tend to see linear relationships where, in fact, there are none. This idea that we lean towards assuming that things will continue to change at the same rate into the future is a way of thinking that oversimplifies the reality of the world and leads us to make incorrect assumptions.
For instance, Hans points out that when we hear about trends like population growth or technological progress, we assume that these trends will continue in a straight line over time. But, in reality, things often change more slowly or more rapidly than we expect, and there are often turning points or unexpected events that alter the trajectory of a trend.
Let’s take the population growth as example: if we look at the data projected by the World Bank in their Open Data blog , we see how we will be reaching a moment where the population will flatten. That is estimated to happen at 11 billion human beings. This decline in population growth is due in part to increased access to education and healthcare, as well as changing cultural attitudes towards family size. As families are better educated and have more access to healthcare, they tend to have fewer children.
The Fear Instinct
Have you ever been afraid of flying on an airplane? And, did you know that airplanes are currently the safest form of transportation? This instinct focuses on the idea that we are wired to respond to things that scare us , even when there is little or no evidence to support them.
This, according to the author, can lead us to be unnecessarily afraid of things that are actually safe, and to overlook the things that are truly dangerous. And what might be causing this, you may say? Is it just us, or are there external inputs? Well, it is very well known that this fear can be fuelled by media coverage and how they sensationalise the news by giving disproportionate attention compared to the hundreds of thousands of flights that were safe.
Additionally, Hans also argues that our fear instinct can be used to manipulate us , and that fear-mongering is often used to sell products, generate political support, and control public opinion.
The Size Instinct
We tend to overestimate the size and impact of things that we perceive as dangerous or unusual, and to underestimate the size and impact of things that we perceive as ordinary or mundane. According to Hans, this tendency leads us to be misinformed about the world and to make incorrect assumptions about the relative importance of different issues.
As an example, the author points out that many people overestimate the size of the global Muslim population, and underestimate the size of the global population of Christians. This is because we tend to associate Muslims with terrorism and extremism, and fail to notice that most Muslims are peaceful and law-abiding citizens.
On the other hand, due to this instinct we might be missing the many things that are going well in the world. For instance, we might be afraid of natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis, but overlook the fact that these events are becoming less frequent and less deadly over time, due to advancements in technology and disaster preparedness.
The Generalisation Instinct
We tend to categorise things into neat and tidy groups , and then assume that everything within a group is the same. For example, many people have a generalisation about people living in poverty. They might assume that all poor people are lazy or lack ambition, or that all poor countries are inherently corrupt or dysfunctional. But, in reality, the situation is much more complex. There are many factors that contribute to poverty, such as lack of access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunities.
One of the main drawbacks of this bias is that we overlook the diversity and complexity of the world due to it. We might assume that all people in a particular country or region are the same, but this misses the fact that there is a great deal of diversity within countries and regions, and that people have different experiences, beliefs, and values.
The Destiny Instinct
This section delves into the mesmerising notion that we have a disposition to believe that the future will follow the same path as the past (similarly to what we saw at The Straight Line Instinct), and that things will remain unchanged. But Hans Rosling challenges this belief and illuminates the reader's perspective by revealing the breathtaking pace of change and improvement in our world.
For instance, Hans sheds light on the widespread notion that poverty is a permanent aspect of humanity. However, he emphasises that this view misses the remarkable progress made in reducing poverty and improving lives globally. He highlights that this progress is not a foregone conclusion, but rather the outcome of deliberate action, investment in education, healthcare, and economic growth.
Moreover, the author also argues that our tendency to believe in destiny and unchanging circumstances blinds us to the influential role we play in shaping our future. He gives an example of how we might consider conflict and war as inevitable, but he also stresses that peace and cooperation are attainable. He inspires us to take charge and shape a more harmonious world through diplomacy, conflict resolution, and education and development initiatives.
The Single Perspective Instinct
This instinct refers to the propensity to view the world from a limited, singular viewpoint, shaped by our own life experiences and cultural biases . Hans argues that this narrow-mindedness causes us to leave unnoticed the complex and diverse nature of the world and the idea that our own experiences and beliefs are not universally applicable.
Hans highlights that many individuals believe their country's way of doing things is the only correct method, disregarding the fact that different cultures may offer unique perspectives and approaches. It's crucial to keep an open mind and seek out diverse perspectives to gain a better understanding of the world and make informed decisions.
Additionally, this bias leads us to overlook the experiences and perspectives of others. We might assume, for example, that everyone in the world has access to healthcare and education, while this is a privilege that not everyone has. Adopting a more inclusive and diverse mindset helps us comprehend the experiences of others and make informed decisions that consider everyone's needs and viewpoints.
The Blame Instinct
Are you tired of playing the blame game? This instinct highlights our natural tendency to point fingers when things go wrong , instead of delving into the real reasons behind the issue. According to Hans Rosling, this urge stems from a desire for simple answers to complex situations.
But this habit can cloud our perception of the world, by oversimplifying complex problems and attributing blame to one person or group without fully considering the many factors at play. This narrow view can lead to incorrect assumptions and misguided decision-making.
Take global problems, for instance. The causes are rarely straightforward, but instead a tangled web of historical, cultural, economic, and political threads. It's easy to assign blame to the poor, or a specific government or policy, but this oversimplification ignores the bigger picture and all the intricacies involved.
The Urgency Instinct
Finally, the Urgency: our tendency to perceive situations as more pressing than they truly are . The author explains this behaviour stems from a natural inclination to react swiftly to perceived threats and dangers. Yet, this instinct can mislead us into overestimating the immediacy of a situation, or disregarding the gradual shifts and underlying forces behind the change.
By succumbing to the urgency instinct, Hans notes that he has made some of the worst medical decisions of his career on pandemic controlling, as he was pressured to act immediately without considering all the available information and options.
When urgency gets over you: take a deep breath, re-examine the data, think analytically and critically, and do not trust predictions that do not account for uncertainty and complexity.
This is truly a remarkable and inspiring read that challenges our perceptions of the world and the way we think about global issues. Throughout the book, Hans provides evidence to dispel myths and to paint a more accurate picture of the world.
The book is written in an engaging and accessible style , making it easy for readers to understand the complex issues that Hans is addressing. It is filled with interesting and thought-provoking insights that will challenge the way you think about the world, and it is sure to leave you feeling more informed, more hopeful, and more inspired to make a difference.
If you're looking for a book that will change the way you think about the world , and that will leave you feeling inspired and optimistic, then Factfulness is your book! Grab a copy today, and discover the world through Hans's fact-based lens. You won't regret it!
Thanks for reading the Learning Cube! Subscribe for free to receive almost weekly book summaries 🙌
Ready for more?
Book Shorts
Factfulness summary
Explain it like i am 5, detailed book summary:-, 7 points that i must know about this book.
1. It is important to look at the world in a positive way instead of a negative way.
2. Many people don’t understand how the world has changed in the past 20 years.
3. Girls in low-income countries are able to finish public school.
4. People tend to focus more on the bad news and not the good.
5. The world’s population will eventually level off.
6. It is important to be careful about what we think about the world.
7. It is important to teach children about the world and show them how it is actually getting much better.
Review your experience
How was the summary?
Factfulness - Hans Rosling
Discover here the guidelines to change your view about the world, through a series of teachings that will show how specifics triggers can confuse our mind about the reality.
Are you also the type who thinks the world is getting worse and worse? That humanity is heading towards its end? In fact, these days it is common to have this vision, but calm down! The book Factfulness, by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, will prove you the opposite !
This book will show you how this notion is somewhat dramatized and, through data , how to have a correct worldview.
With it, you will learn to differentiate what is "drama" from what is fact. This helps to make better decisions , be alert to real dangers and possibilities, and avoid stressing over unnecessary things.
No wonder, this book is recommended by Bill Gates! Got interested to know more? Continue this reading with us!
About the book "Factfulness"
"Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things are Better this Way" is a work of Hans Rosling, in partnership with his son Ola Rosling and his daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Rönnlund.
This work was published in 2018 and consists of 342 pages, divided into 11 chapters. They discuss why most of the population is ignorant when it comes to global issues, and how to solve this problem .
The book was even recommended by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates :
"The world would be a better place if literally millions of people read this book. I give my highest recommendation. "
About the authors Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund
Hans Rosling was a Swedish physician, academic, statistician and public speaker responsible for founding, together with his son and daughter-in-law, the Gapminder Foundation .
He taught financial institutions, corporations, and non-governmental organizations, and presented ten TED Talks , which were attended more than 35 million times.
Ola Rosling, son of Hans, was responsible for developing the ignorance tests of the Gapminder Foundation - which he co-founded and is currently a director.
He developed all the material used by Hans in his lectures and TED Talks. In addition, he was the creator of the famous "bubble graphs" and the Trendalyzer tool used to date by millions of students around the world.
The Swedish received several awards for his work, including the Résumé Super-communicator Award and the Niras International Integrated Development Prize in 2016.
Anna Rosling Rönnlund is a sociologist and co-founder of the Gapminder Foundation , where she assisted in the creation of all material used by Hans and the interface of the Trendalyzer tool.
At Gapminder , she developed new free teaching materials, generating Dollar Street , the subject of his 2017 TED Talk .
Anna has also received several awards for her work, such as the Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award and the Résumé Super-communicator Award in 2017.
To whom is this book indicated?
It is recommended for individuals who cares about the world we live in and wants to let go of instincts that hold us to a clear view of the facts.
If you want to get a better comprehension about people's behavior and their world conception, changing your mindset and stopping wasting time with useless things, this book is for you!
Main ideas of the book "Factfulness"
- The world is not as bad as the media makes it seem;
- Ignorance about the reality of the world is very common;
- Our brain prefers to work with dramatized conceptions of facts;
- There are mechanisms to get rid of these conceptions and reach a more realistic notion of things;
- It is easier to be guided by the majority ;
- The bad can be simultaneously better;
- Growth does not happen regularly and unbridled;
- Fear makes us see things distorted;
- It is important to put things in proportion and perspective;
- Generalize and categorize does not produce good results;
- Slow changes are still changes;
- A situation needs to be viewed from many different angles for better analysis;
- The blame for things is hardly a person or group of people, but a more complex system ;
- No need to act immediately and recklessly, urgency also distorts our view;
- The world needs people with a more realistic worldview;
- This view is important regarding different aspects of our lives;
- Many areas need people who have this more realistic view.
Download the "Factfulness" Book Summary in PDF for free
Do you have no time to read now? Then download the free PDF and read wherever and whenever you want:
![[Book Summary] Factfulness - Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund](https://images.prismic.io/pb4y/YjhiNjkyNDAtNTk0OS00ZWE2LWFhYTMtZTA0M2JiMTg3ZTMy_q1owvhmji3m2jm_0pikt82sloraxnrswcbhkhi95gj2tieaipv1d6krkdy2ftneeslclmud7ssejc6crxngjq3pmpmm4lbm_kjdiljxmpfdrsvfzo5hfjralmfu-edsf_d0qcjpzbqdqnt-4msgqyoo "Click and download the PDF!")
Overview: The Separation Instinct
People, in general, tend to like to divide all kinds of things into two different groups , which are often in conflict. This is especially true to the division of the world between 'developed' and 'underdeveloped' or 'rich' and 'poor'.
But this is not what the data tells us. The reality is that based on official data, the world can be divided into four income levels , based on how many dollars a person lives per day: $ 2 or less, $2 - $8, $8 - $32, and $32 onwards.
Contrary to popular belief, most of the population lives on both average levels, and only a small part live in absolute poverty or extreme wealth . What should be done is to use mechanisms to warn about when a story has this polarized view, with a gap between the extremes.
For this, the author teaches to control these symptoms of the "separation instinct " with three simple methods:
- Be careful with the averages ;
- Beware of extremes ;
- Beware of the distorted, superior view of reality. Always look for the majority.
Overview: The Negative Instinct
This chapter of the book "Factfulness" is about how we tend to always notice the bad much more than the good. According to research by the authors Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, most people believe that the world is getting worse and worse.
But the data show that is not quite so. What happens is that we have an extremely negative view of just what's bad happening now, in the present. On the other hand, when you put the present in its historical context, you can see how much things are getting better .
In addition, the view presented by the media is also distorted so that the "bad" outweighs the "good". By this way, most people find it is empathetic to believe that the world is getting better when there are still so many bad things going on.
To better control this instinct:
- Learn to expect bad news;
- Understand that it is more difficult to receive the good, as they occur more gradually ;
- Convince yourself that things can be both bad and good than before;
- Be wary of the idea of a "glorified" past that runs away from reality.
Overview: The Straight Line Instinct
The third major misconception facing humanity is the idea that the world's population is just growing. In fact, the population is growing, but the addition of the word "only" gives the sense that if nothing is done, that number will continue to grow wildly .
Imagine a graph that only follows eternally straight. The truth is that this growth should not be seen as a straight line, but rather as a graph that has curves, ups, and downs.
This data depends on many external issues to exist. The world shows that more and more people are moving towards a balance in terms of the number of people living on the planet.
Growth, whatever it is, in a straight line is very rare, and one should beware of this assumption. To control the "straight line instinct", remember that there are lines of various shapes.
Overview: The Instinct of Fear
Human brains are equipped with attention filters that decide which information to process and which to ignore.
The three instincts already mentioned by the book "Factfulness" are examples of things that go through these filters. Such filters tend to pay more attention to things that make the most impact, that is, more ' dramatic '.
The media simply will not bother to publish stories that will not pass our attention filters. Therefore, it stirs what triggers reactions and most holds our attention: fear .
Fear can be helpful if directed at the right things. However, one must pay attention to the distinction of what is frightening and what is really dangerous. Only what is really dangerous presents a real risk, depending on your exposure to it, other than what only makes you afraid.
An important guideline is never to make decisions while panicking because fear makes us see things distorted .
Overview: The Instinct of Size
The human being tends to let things take on exaggerated proportions .
The authors Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund says that we must beware of solitary information , especially when it comes to numbers.
Before deciding if the number given in that information is important, you should always compare it with others. This, therefore, when put in context, its meaning can change completely.
Also, you need to divide it by quantities in order to find out the average , or what part of a whole it represents.
To regulate this instinct for greatness , always put everything in proportion.
Overview: The Generalization Instinct
Everybody generalize and categorize automatically, unconsciously. The problem is that it also helps to distort our worldview by making us jump to conclusions that are usually wrong .
What must be done to avoid this distortion is to question these categories that we have created ourselves. Always look for:
- Differences between points placed within the same group;
- Similarities between points placed in different groups,
- Differences among different groups.
This tips from the book "Factfulness" will help you generate better categories .
Be careful with "most". Always work with more accurate percentages, as "majority" means only more than "half." Also, work with the exceptions, like these, as they are usually more shocking , eventually stand out.
Overview: The Destiny Instinct
This chapter addresses the idea that innate characteristics determine the future of people, countries, cultures, and religions.
Nowadays, the notion of seeing things as unchanging blinds us to all the revolutionary transformations happening around us.
It must be acknowledged that some things seem to be constant just because change happens slowly. Understand that slow changes are still changes that may one day lead to something great.
Also, keeping track of all the small changes and news, and comparing them with the past are also ways to get rid of this idea.
Overview: The One-Perspective Instinct
There are two main reasons why people often focus on only one perspective when it comes to understanding the world: political and professional ideology .
It is important to recognize that a single perspective on something can limit your imagination . You have to look at a situation from different angles to understand it better.
To make this happen, surround yourself with people who disagree with your opinions and can test them to find your weaknesses, as well as people who have different views that can help you solve a problem.
Simple ideas and solutions should be studied with caution:
- Seek to embrace complexity;
- Combine ideas;
- Commit to solving problems more fully and efficiently.
Overview: The Instinct to Blame
The journey to find a clear and simple reason why something bad happened is what makes us feel guilt . We like to believe that things happen simply because someone wanted them to happen. This prevents us from developing a true, fact-based understanding of the world.
We need to resist the temptation to point the finger and blame some individual or group of individuals. When you find someone to blame, stop thinking and so don't get to the bottom of the matter .
Usually, the "culprit" is something much more complex, a system-generated by multiple interconnected causes that we must understand in order to avoid future problems.
This is also when something good happens and someone is taken as a hero: wouldn't the result be the same without that person?
In any case, always avoid looking for scapegoats.
Overview: The Urge Instinct
When faced with decisions that must be made immediately, we end up triggering an urgent instinct that makes us think less critically, make decisions quickly, and act on time.
This trigger, no matter how hard it makes us act, forces us make bad choices and go through unnecessary stress. And if fired too often, it makes us numb for when something is really urgent.
So if you come across a situation where there is sense of urgency, Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund gives 4 tips :
- Try to ask for more time and more information before making a decision ;
- Ask for access accurate and relevant data about the case;
- Take care of predictions and analyze them to understand if they can be considered valid or not;
- Worry about the side effects of your actions, always calculating the impact they will have.
Overview: Factfulness in Action
In the last chapter of the book "Factfulness", the authors decides to express how using all the points shown in the previous chapters can be helpful in your life!
When it comes to education , it is a fact that everyone should have access to updated, fact-based teaching structures. This is so that they can develop critical thinking and protect future generations from global ignorance .
For business , a right view of the world is useful in many ways: in marketing and sales, making investment decisions , or even hiring non-ignorant people.
When we talk about journalists , we must understand that they don't mean to give us a correct perspective on the world, and we should not expect it from they. And there is a reason for that. Therefore, do not base your knowledge on what the media presents.
Finally, the reader is encouraged to look for ignorance in the environment in which he lives using the same methods used throughout the book. Asking questions to those around you can generate an avalanche of curiosity and new knowledge if done with humility.
What do other authors say about it?
Tom Chatfield, the author of "How to Thrive in the Digital Age ", says that content on the Internet today becomes relevant no longer through the endorsement of an expert on the subject, but because of its popularity with the public. This approach leaves room for consumer mass to be manipulated.
"A Whole New Mind ", written by Daniel H. Pink, states that thanks to the fusion of wealth, technology, and increased people connection through phones and the internet, the world is transitioning into a new era beyond knowledge. It takes creativity, empathy, and emotion.
Yuval Noah Harari, in his work "Sapiens ", explains that imperial rule led to the generation in a society of "artificial instincts ", within various ethnic and religious groups so that they could live in a society of effectively.
Okay, but how can I apply this to my life?
- Worry about not having a distorted and biased worldview;
- When making a study of some data, look for the most, avoid extremes and large gaps;
- Know how to deal with the way the media presents information;
- Expect bad news, but understand that the bad now may be better in the future;
- Remember that there are lines of varying shapes, not just straight lines;
- Don't let fear distort your worldview, and know how to calculate the risks of what is really dangerous.
- Put things in perspective and work with proportions ;
- Do not generalize or categorize things;
- Try to have different perspectives of the same situation;
- Avoid scapegoats;
- Do not make decisions in times of urgency.
Did you like this summary of the book "Factfulness"?
In fact, this is a book that should be read by everyone without exception. Realizing how wrong we are about our overview of the world is both scary and exciting, so much to learn!
Did you get the feeling that everything you believed to be true was just a misperception? Give your feedback and leave a comment, then we will be able to always offer you the best content !
To buy the complete work, it is available at the Amazon store by clicking in the image below!
Sign up for free
And receive a weekly summary of the biggest best sellers to read and listen to whenever you want!
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell – Book Summary
How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling Book Summary (PDF) by Frank Bettger
Antifragile Book Summary (PDF) by Nicholas Nassim Taleb
Factfulness book summary (pdf) by hans rosling, ola rosling, anna rosling rönnlund.
Note: This post contains affiliate links which means if you click on a link and purchase an item, we will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.
Why This Book Matters:
Are you one of the many that think the world is actually worse off than it used to be?
If so, this book sheds light on some of the human instincts and societal trends behind this notion to show you that the human race is actually making more progress than you may think.
Key Takeaways:
- Many people think that there are far more third-world countries than there actually are.
- Example: In 1965, there were 125 developing countries, while today only 13 countries are considered to be still developing.
- The media often focuses on the negative to attract readers’ attention, so many people think the world is much worse off than it used to be, when in fact, the human race has made substantial progress.
- Example: Many people think much of the world still lives in poverty, while in actuality, only 9% live in poverty compared to 85% in 1800.
- The “straight line” instinct is the erroneous tendency to believe anything that is moving in a certain direction will keep moving that way in a linear fashion. Our fear instinct evolved during a time when there were substantially more immediate dangers.
- Example: The world’s population has steadily climbed, causing panic about the future. However, experts forecast the population will level off by the end of the 21st century.
- People tend to overgeneralize data and don’t interpret it within the proper context, which results in much more drastic assumptions than necessary.
- Example: The statistic that four million babies died last year could make some arrive at a very dark conclusion about the world. However, it’s also important to look at this statistic in the context of progress, as 14.4 million babies died in 1950.
- Most of the world’s problems are very complex and cannot be solved with a single solution. Progress requires looking at the issue from several angles.
- Example: Many people blamed refugee drownings in the Mediterranean on traffickers. In reality, host nation laws required trafficker boats be confiscated upon entrance, influencing traffickers’ decision to use poor quality boats.
- Much information circulating is exaggerated to sway people’s opinion. But, exaggeration lessens your credibility as soon as your audience discovers you are inflating facts.
- Example: Climate change is real. However, some doomsday activists have lost support because of their failure to discuss the issue from all angles.
Want To Keep Reading?
- Read A Longer Form Summary on Blinkist
- Buy The Book on Amazon
- Listen To The Audiobook
Watch A Video Summary:
Additional Video From The Author:
- A – G BOOK SUMMARIES
- H – S BOOK SUMMARIES
- T – Z BOOK SUMMARIES
- Motivational Showers
- Success in 50 Steps
- Brian Tracy
- Dale Carnegie
- Earl Nightingale
- Eckhart Tolle
- Evan Carmichael
- Gary Vaynerchuk
- Grant Cardone
- Lewis Howes
- Napoleon Hill
- Richard Branson
- Robert Greene
- Robert Kiyosaki
- Russell Brunson
- Ryan Holiday
- Simon Sinek
- Tim Ferriss
- Tom Butler-Bowdon
- Tony Robbins
- Biographies
- Business & Marketing
- Real Estate
- Relationships
- Personal Development
- Spirituality
- Time Management
- Search Search for: Search Button
Factfulness by Hans Rosling Book Summary
- – Share on Twitter
- – Share on Facebook
- – Share on Google+
- – Share on LinkedIn
- – Share via Email
♠ CLICK THIS TO STOP READING BY YOURSELF AND JOIN THE ‘BEST BOOK CLUB’ NOW HERE TO MEET AUTHORS AND NEW FRIENDS
♣ CLICK THIS TO STOP TRYING TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS BY YOURSELF AND BE COACHED TODAY HERE
♥ CLICK THIS TO DOWNLOAD THIS FREE PDF SUMMARY HERE
♦ CLICK THESE FOR THE FOLLOWING Book | Summaries | Course
YouTube | Spotify | Instagram | Facebook | Newsletter | Website
- Factfulness is about the ten instincts that distort our perspective of the world and prevent us from seeing how it actually is.
Factfulness Summary
10 Instincts That Distort Our Perspective
- The Gap Instinct. Our tendency to divide things into two distinct and often conflicting groups with an imagined gap between them (e.g. us and them ).
- The Negativity Instinct. Our tendency to notice the bad more than the good (e.g. believing that things are getting worse when things are actually getting better).
- The Straight Line Instinct. Our tendency to assume that a line will just continue straight and ignoring that such lines are rare in reality.
- The Fear Instinct. Our hardwired tendency to pay more attention to frightening things.
- The Size Instinct. Our tendency to get things out of proportion, or misjudge the size of things (e.g. we systematically overestimate the proportions of immigrants in our countries.)
- The Generalization Instinct. Our tendency to mistakenly group together things or people, or countries that are actually very different.
- The Destiny Instinct. The idea that innate characteristics determine the destinies of people, countries, religions, or cultures; that things are as they are because of inescapable reasons.
- The Single Perspective. Our tendency to focus on a single cause or perspective when it comes to understanding the world (e.g. forming your worldview by relying on the media, alone).
- The Blame Instinct. Our tendency to find a clear, simple reason for why something bad has happened.
- The Urgency Instinct. Our tendency to take immediate action in the face of perceived imminent danger, and in doing so, amplifying our other instincts.
Introduction: Why I Love the Circus
Every group of people that Hans Rosling asks thinks that the world is more frightening, more violent, and more hopeless than it really is.
“Step-by-step, year-by-year, the world is improving,” writes Rosling. “Not on every single measure every single year, but as a rule. Though the world faces huge challenges, we have made tremendous progress. This is the fact-based worldview.”
The author writes, “We need to learn to control our drama intake. Uncontrolled, our appetite for the dramatic goes too far, prevents us from seeing the world as it is, and leads us terribly astray.”
Chapter One: The Gap Instinct
The gap instinct describes our tendency to divide things into two distinct and often conflicting groups with an imagined gap in between them.
“Eighty-five percent of mankind is already inside the box that used to be named ‘developed world.’ The remaining 15 percent are mostly in between the two boxes. Only 13 countries, representing 6 percent of the world population, are still inside the ‘developing’ box.”
“There is no gap between the West and the rest, between developed and developing, between rich and poor. And we should all stop using the simple pairs of categories that suggest there is.”
“Only 9 percent of the world lives in low-income countries.”
“Low-income countries are much more developed than most people think. And vastly fewer people live in them. The idea of a divided world with a majority stuck in misery and deprivation is an illusion. A complete misconception. Simply wrong.”
“The majority of people live neither in low-income countries nor in high-income countries, but in middle-income countries. This category doesn’t exist in the divided mindset, but in reality, it definitely exists.”
“Dividing countries into two groups no longer make sense,” says Rosling. It doesn’t help us to understand the world in a practical way. Nor does it help businesses find opportunities or aid money to find the poorest people.
Our most important challenge in developing a fact-based worldview, according to Rosling, is to realize that most of our firsthand experiences are from Level 4; and that our secondhand experiences are filtered through the mass media, which loves nonrepresentative extraordinary events and shuns normality.
Factfulness Is …
- … recognizing when a story talks about a gap and remembering that this paints a picture of two separate groups, with a gap in between. The reality is often not polarized at all. Usually, the majority is right there in the middle, where the gap is supposed to be.
- To control the gap instinct, look for the majority.
- Beware comparisons of averages. If you could check the spreads you would probably find they overlap. There is probably no gap at all.
- Beware comparisons of extremes. In all groups, of countries or people, there are some at the top and some at the bottom. The difference is sometimes extremely unfair. But even then the majority is usually somewhere in between, right where the gap is supposed to be.
- The view from up here. Remember, looking down from above distorts the view. Everything else looks equally short, but it’s not.
Chapter Two: The Negativity Instinct
The negativity instinct describes our tendency to notice the bad more than the good.
Rosling invites readers to think of the world as a premature baby in an incubator. He writes,
When you hear about something terrible, calm yourself by asking, If there had been an equally large positive improvement, would I have heard about that?
- … recognizing when we get negative news, and remembering that information about bad events is much more likely to reach us. When things are getting better we often don’t hear about them. This gives us a systematically too-negative impression of the world around us, which is very stressful. To control the negativity instinct, expect bad news.
- Better and bad. Practice distinguishing between a level (e.g., bad) and a direction of change (e.g., better). Convince yourself that things can be both better and bad.
- Good news is not news. Good news is almost never reported. So the news is almost always bad. When you see bad news, ask whether equally, positive news would have reached you.
- Gradual improvement is not news. When a trend is gradually improving, with periodic dips, you are more likely to notice the dips than the overall improvement.
- More news does not equal more suffering. More bad news is sometimes due to better surveillance of suffering, not a worsening world.
- Beware of rosy pasts. People often glorify their early experiences, and nations often glorify their histories.
Chapter Three: The Straight Line Instinct
The straight line instinct describes our tendency to assume that a line will just continue straight and ignoring that such lines are rare in reality.
The world population is increasing. But it’s not just increasing. The “just” implies that, if nothing is done, the population will just keep on growing. It implies that some drastic action is needed in order to stop the growth. That is the misconception, and Rosling believes that it is based on our instinct to assume that lines are straight.
- … recognizing the assumption that a line will just continue straight, and remembering that such lines are rare in reality. To control the straight line instinct, remember that curves come in different shapes.
- Don’t assume straight lines. Many trends do not follow straight lines but are S-bends, slides, humps, or doubling lines. No child ever kept up the rate of growth it achieved in its first six months, and no parents would expect it to.
Chapter Four: The Fear Instinct
The fear instinct describes our tendency to pay more attention to frightening things.
“Critical thinking is always difficult, but it’s almost impossible when we are scared. There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.”
“The image of a dangerous world has never been broadcast more effectively than it is now, while the world has never been less violent and more safe.”
- … recognizing when frightening things get our attention, and remembering that these are not necessarily the most risky. Our natural fears of violence, captivity, and contamination make us systematically overestimate these risks. To control the fear instinct, calculate the risks.
- The scary world: fear vs. reality. The world seems scarier than it is because what you hear about it has been selected—by your own attention filter or by the media—precisely because it is scary.
- Risk = danger × exposure. The risk something poses to you depends not on how scared it makes you feel, but on a combination of two things. How dangerous is it? And how much are you exposed to it?
- Get calm before you carry on. When you are afraid, you see the world differently. Make as few decisions as possible until the panic has subsided.
Chapter Five: The Size Instinct
The size instinct describes our tendency to get things out of proportion, or misjudge the size of things (e.g. we systematically overestimate the proportions of immigrants in our countries.)
Ingegerd Rooth, a missionary nurse, once told Han Rosling, “In the deepest poverty, you should never do anything perfectly. If you do you are stealing resources from where they can be better used.”
“The two aspects of the size instinct, together with the negativity instinct, make us systematically underestimate the progress that has been made in the world.”
“To avoid getting things out of proportion you need only two magic tools: comparing and dividing.”
“The most important thing you can do to avoid misjudging something’s importance is to avoid lonely numbers. Never, ever leave a number all by itself. Never believe that one number on its own can be meaningful. If you are offered one number, always ask for at least one more. Something to compare it with. Be especially careful about big numbers.”
- … recognizing when a lonely number seems impressive (small or large), and remembering that you could get the opposite impression if it were compared with or divided by some other relevant number. To control the size instinct, get things in proportion.
- Big numbers always look big. Single numbers on their own are misleading and should make you suspicious. Always look for comparisons. Ideally, divide by something.
- 80/20. Have you been given a long list? Look for the few largest items and deal with those first. They are quite likely more important than all the others put together.
- Amounts and rates can tell very different stories. Rates are more meaningful, especially when comparing between different-sized groups. In particular, look for rates per person when comparing between countries or regions.
Chapter Six: The Generalization Instinct
“[The generalization instinct] can make us mistakenly group together things, or people, or countries that are actually very different. It can make us assume everything or everyone in one category is similar. And, maybe most unfortunate of all, it can make us jump to conclusions about a whole category based on a few, or even just one, unusual example.”
- … recognizing when a category is being used in an explanation, and remembering that categories can be misleading. We can’t stop generalization and we shouldn’t even try. What we should try to do is to avoid generalizing incorrectly. To control the generalization instinct, question your categories.
- Look for differences within groups. Especially when the groups are large, look for ways to split them into smaller, more precise categories. And …
- Look for similarities across groups. If you find striking similarities between different groups, consider whether your categories are relevant. But also …
- Look for differences across groups. Do not assume that what applies for one group (e.g., you and other people living on Level 4 or unconscious soldiers) applies for another (e.g., people not living on Level 4 or sleeping babies).
- Beware of “the majority.” The majority just means more than half. Ask whether it means 51 percent, 99 percent, or something in between.
- Beware of vivid examples. Vivid images are easier to recall but they might be the exception rather than the rule.
- Assume people are not idiots. When something looks strange, be curious and humble, and think, In what way is this a smart solution?
Chapter Seven: The Destiny Instinct
The destiny instinct is the idea that innate characteristics determine the destinies of people, countries, religions, or cultures. It’s the idea that things are as they are for ineluctable, inescapable reasons: they have always been this way and will never change.
This instinct makes us believe that our false generalizations (the generalization instinct) or the tempting gaps (the gap instinct) are not only true but fated: unchanging and unchangeable.
- … recognizing that many things (including people, countries, religions, and cultures) appear to be constant just because the change is happening slowly, and remembering that even small, slow changes gradually add up to big changes. To control the destiny instinct, remember slow change is still change.
- Keep track of gradual improvements. A small change every year can translate to a huge change over time.
- Update your knowledge. Some knowledge goes out of date quickly. Technology, countries, societies, cultures, and religions are constantly changing.
- Talk to Grandpa. If you want to be reminded of how values have changed, think about your grandparents’ values and how they differ from yours.
- Collect examples of cultural change. Challenge the idea that today’s culture must also have been yesterday’s, and will also be tomorrow’s.
Chapter Eight: The Single Perspective Instinct
“Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you like to understand reality. Instead, constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, see people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world.”
- … recognizing that a single perspective can limit your imagination, and remembering that it is better to look at problems from many angles to get a more accurate understanding and find practical solutions. To control the single perspective instinct, get a toolbox, not a hammer.
- Test your ideas. Don’t only collect examples that show how excellent your favorite ideas are. Have people who disagree with you test your ideas and find their weaknesses.
- Limited expertise. Don’t claim expertise beyond your field: be humble about what you don’t know. Be aware too of the limits of the expertise of others.
- Hammers and nails. If you are good with a tool, you may want to use it too often. If you have analyzed a problem in depth, you can end up exaggerating the importance of that problem or of your solution. Remember that no one tool is good for everything. If your favorite idea is a hammer, look for colleagues with screwdrivers, wrenches, and tape measures. Be open to ideas from other fields.
- Numbers, but not only numbers. The world cannot be understood without numbers, and it cannot be understood with numbers alone. Love numbers for what they tell you about real lives.
- Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions. History is full of visionaries who used simple utopian visions to justify terrible actions. Welcome complexity. Combine ideas. Compromise. Solve problems on a case-by-case basis.
Chapter Nine: The Blame Instinct
The blame instinct describes our tendency to find a clear, simple reason for why something bad has happened.
When things go wrong, it’s easy to assume it’s due to bad people with bad intentions.
Rosling writes, “We like to believe that things happen because someone wanted them to, that individuals have power and agency: otherwise, the world feels unpredictable, confusing, and frightening.”
“The blame instinct makes us exaggerate the importance of individuals or of particular groups,” writes Rosling. “This instinct to find a guilty party derails our ability to develop a true, fact-based understanding of the world: it steals our focus as we obsess about someone to blame, then blocks our learning because once we have decided who to [blame] we stop looking for explanations elsewhere. This undermines our ability to solve the problem or prevent it from happening again because we are stuck with over simplistic finger-pointing, which distracts us from the more complex truth and prevents us from focusing our energy in the right places.
- … recognizing when a scapegoat is being used and remembering that blaming an individual often steals the focus from other possible explanations and blocks our ability to prevent similar problems in the future. To control the blame instinct, resist finding a scapegoat.
- Look for causes, not villains. When something goes wrong don’t look for an individual or a group to blame. Accept that bad things can happen without anyone intending them to. Instead spend your energy on understanding the multiple interacting causes, or system, that created the situation.
- Look for systems, not heroes. When someone claims to have caused something good, ask whether the outcome might have happened anyway, even if that individual had done nothing. Give the system some credit.
Chapter Ten: The Urgency Instinct
The urgency instinct describes our tendency to take immediate action in the face of perceived imminent danger, and in doing so, amplifying our other instincts.
To paraphrase Rosling, the urgency instinct served us well in the past. For example, if we thought there might be a lion in the grass, it wasn’t sensible to do too much analysis. But now that we have eliminated most immediate dangers and are left with more complex and often more abstract problems, the urgency instinct can lead us astray when it comes to our understanding of the world around us.
- … recognizing when a decision feels urgent and remembering that it rarely is. To control the urgency instinct, take small steps.
- Take a breath. When your urgency instinct is triggered, your other instincts kick in and your analysis shuts down. Ask for more time and more information. It’s rarely now or never and it’s rarely either/or.
- Insist on the data. If something is urgent and important, it should be measured. Beware of data that is relevant but inaccurate, or accurate but irrelevant. Only relevant and accurate data is useful.
- Beware of fortune-tellers. Any prediction about the future is uncertain. Be wary of predictions that fail to acknowledge that. Insist on a full range of scenarios, never just the best or worst case. Ask how often such predictions have been right before.
- Be wary of drastic action. Ask what the side effects will be. Ask how the idea has been tested. Step-by-step practical improvements and evaluation of their impact are less dramatic but usually more effective.
You Might also like
Ken McElroy: The ABCs of Real Estate Investing Book Summary
The Art of Public Speaking | Dale Carnegie | Book Summary
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom Summary
Leave a reply cancel reply.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Recent Posts
- Rescuing Socrates | Roosevelt Montas Interview | How the Great Books Changed My Life
- Living Forward | A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want | Michael Hyatt | Summary
- Secrets to Parenting Without Giving a F^ck | Sue Donnellan | The Playbook to Raising Happy Kids
- Guinness World Record Holder 🌎 | World’s Fastest Reader 🏅 | Howard Berg Interview
- You Can Be Right About Everything and Still Have Nothing | VICKIE GRIFFITH Interview
- 5 Min Books 34
- 50 Words to Your Dreams 51
- Best Business Bits 15
- Biographies 41
- Brian Tracy 13
- Business & Marketing 118
- Chris Guillebeau 4
- Dale Carnegie 5
- Donald Trump 2
- Earl Nightingale 3
- Eckhart Tolle 3
- Evan Carmichael 2
- Gary Vaynerchuk 7
- Grant Cardone 8
- Interviews 106
- John Maxwell 2
- Leadership 20
- Lewis Howes 2
- Malcolm Gladwell 2
- Motivational Showers 7
- Napoleon Hill 6
- Og Mandino 2
- Parenting 6
- Personal Development 224
- Philosophy 44
- Psychology 21
- Real Estate 2
- Relationships 17
- Richard Branson 3
- Robert Greene 7
- Robert Kiyosaki 10
- Russell Brunson 10
- Ryan Holiday 7
- Scott Pape 2
- Seth Godin 6
- Simon Sinek 4
- Spirituality 62
- Success in 50 Steps 26
- Tim Ferriss 4
- Time Management 20
- Tom Butler-Bowdon 5
- Tony Robbins 9
- Top 20 Books 4
- Wayne Dyer 4
- Zig Ziglar 4
Email address:
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Factfulness Is … … recognizing when frightening things get our attention, and remembering that these are not necessarily the most risky. Our natural fears of violence, captivity, and contamination make us systematically overestimate these risks. To control the fear instinct, calculate the risks. The scary world: fear vs. reality.
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—And Why Things Are Better Than You Think, written by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, was published by Flatiron Books in 2018.
In our Factfulness summary, we'll explain the 10 key mental filters and how to recognize/manage them to develop a fact-based worldview, to avoid unnecessary stress and improve our ability to make sound decisions. For the full details, examples and tips, do get a copy of the book, or get a detailed overview with our complete book summary bundle.
Factfulness Summary 2: The Negativity Instinct The negativity instinct is the tendency to believe that the world is bad and getting worse. You might fret about the looming threat of global warning, the frequency of terrorist and shooting attacks, and the ever-uncertain condition of the economy.
1-Sentence-Summary: Factfulness explains how our worldview has been distorted with the rise of new media, which ten human instincts cause erroneous thinking, and how we can learn to separate fact from fiction when forming our opinions. Read in: 4 minutes Favorite quote from the author: Table of Contents Video Summary Factfulness Summary
Factfulness Book Summary: I can't stress enough how important I think it is to read this book!! (You can tell I'm serious if I've put two exclamation marks). Hans Rosling perfectly sums up how we look at the world and how we are so easily lead astray by our instinctual minds.
Factfulness by Hans Rosling Book Summary - Review Written by Savaş Ateş in Nonfiction If we would live on an ideal planet, what exactly happened would be presented in the news by journalists, and relevant backgrounds to make them even more powerful would be provided.
Factfulness is about understanding how our instincts program us to exaggerate situations and distort our perception of reality in ways that further exacerbate problems and how we react to them.
Factfulness was posthumously published and co-authored by his son, Ola Rosling, and daughter-in-law, Anna Rosling Rönnlund. The book focuses on the idea that we systematically overestimate how bad the world is on many of the most important metrics, such as poverty, violence and income.
Factfulness is a posthumous book by statistician and physician Hans Rosling. This book is co-written with his son, Ola Rosling, and his daughter-in-law, Anna Rosling Rönnlund. The premise of the book is that most humans are wrong about the state of the world. We all exaggerate the negatives in the world.
Factfulness: A Complete Summary - Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think" is a book written by Hans Rosling with the cooperation of his colleagues and few of his associates.The reason why the book was named "Factfulness" was its content and the content of the book revolves around facts ...
Answer: 1 billion in Americas, 1 billion in Europe, 1 billion in Africa, 4 billion in Asia. By the end of this century, it is expected that Africa will have 3 more billion people, and 1 more ...
Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends―what percentage of the world's population live in poverty; why the world's population is increasing; how many girls finish school―we systematically get the answers wrong.
Summury - Free Book Summaries. Summary of books to help you learn the most important lessons from many different books in no time. Book Summaries; About; Night Mode. Factfulness. Facebook. ... And because of that, in his book, "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think," Rosling ...
Hans argues that by embracing factfulness, that is, a more data-driven view of the world, we can make better decisions and lead more fulfilling lives. The book is based on Hans' extensive experience as a global health researcher and his expertise in data analysis and presentation at Gapminder.
Book by Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Ola Rosling Explain it like i am 5? To a five year old: It is important to be kind and think positively about the world. Even though there are bad things happening, there are also a lot of good things that have happened in the past 200 years. […]
The book Factfulness, by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, will prove you the opposite! This book will show you how this notion is somewhat dramatized and, through data, how to have a correct worldview. With it, you will learn to differentiate what is "drama" from what is fact.
Factfulness Book Summary (PDF) by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund. Posted by Cam Woodsum. Note: This post contains affiliate links which means if you click on a link and purchase an item, we will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.
👉 DOWNLOAD THIS FREE PDF SUMMARY BELOWhttps://go.bestbookbits.com/freepdf👉 HIRE ME FOR COACHING & MENTORINGhttps://go.bestbookbits.com/mentoring👉 GET A CO...
The Book in One Sentence. Factfulness is about the ten instincts that distort our perspective of the world and prevent us from seeing how it actually is. Factfulness Summary. 10 Instincts That Distort Our Perspective. The Gap Instinct.Our tendency to divide things into two distinct and often conflicting groups with an imagined gap between them (e.g. us and them).