Connecting Numbers with Emotion: Review of Numbers and Nerves: Information, Emotion, and Meaning in a World of Data by Scott Slovic and Paul Slovic (2015)

Abstract

Scott Slovic and Paul Slovic (Eds.). Numbers and Nerves: Information, Emotion, and Meaning in a World of Data (Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2015). 272 pp. ISBN 978-0-87071-776-5. It is common to view quantitative literacy as reasoning with respect to numbers. In Numbers and Nerves, the contributors to the volume make clear that we should attend not only to how students consciously reason with numbers, but also how our innate biases influence our actions when faced with numbers. Beginning with the concepts of psychic numbing, and then psuedoinefficacy, the contributors to the volume examine how our behaviors when faced with large numbers are often not mathematically rational. I consider the implications of these phenomena for the Numeracy community.

Keywords

• psychology
• numeracy
• numbers
• emotion