This is an alphabetical version. For a subjective ranked version see: Ranked: Why Do People Think Differently?
The below books explain why people view reality differently. What causes them to think differently. Understanding why people think a certain way can help engage with them.
An Ethical Account
- Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It by Max H. Bazerman, Ann E. Tenbrunsel
- A Philosophy of Evil by Lars Svendsen
Different Backgrounds
- A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles by Thomas Sowell
- The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap by Gish Jen
- The Heroine With 1,001 Faces by Maria Tatar
- How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett
- How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan
- Inventing the Enemy by Umberto Eco
- Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez
- Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them by Joshua D. Greene
- Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much by Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
- Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin To Munger by Peter Bevelin
- Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolph Trouillot
- The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson
- Transformative Experience by L. A. Paul
- War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges
- The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World by Charles C. Mann
Different Wants
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff
- The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth by Jonathan Rauch
- Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier
- Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
- Science Fictions: The Epidemic of Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype in Science by Stuart Ritchie
- The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World by Stewart Patrick
- Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming by McKenzie Funk
Divergent Thinking
- Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us by Brian Klaas
- In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Jeanne Nemeth
- From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965-2000 by Lee Kuan Yew
- Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization by Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant
- Think Like a Freak by Steven D. Levitt, and Stephen J. Dubner
- Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
- Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
- Why Societies Need Dissent by Cass R. Sunstein
Divergent Thinking / Fiction
- Elektra by Jennifer Saint
- A Voracious Grief by Lindsey Lamh
The Influence of Culture
- Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
- The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror by Bernard Lewis
- The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
- Hybrid Warfare: The Russian Approach to Strategic Competition & Conventional Military Conflict by Curtis L. Fox
- Japanese Culture: The Religious and Philosophical Foundations by Roger J. Davies
- Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose by John Nathan
- Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason by Michel Foucault
- The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America by Verlan Lewis, Hyrum Lewis
- Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland
- Race And Culture: A World View by Thomas Sowell
- Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: Tight and Loose Cultures and the Secret Signals that Direct Our Lives by Michele Gelfand
- The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter by Joseph Henrich
- When Women Ruled The World by Maureen Quilligan
- Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America by John McWhorter
- World Cultures: Analyzing Pre-Industrial Societies In Africa, Asia, Europe, And the Americas by James T. Shea
The Influence of Culture / Fiction
- Berlin by Jason Lutes
Learning Different Ways to Think
- Buddha by Karen Armstrong
- Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It by Ian Leslie
- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
- How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine ... for Now by Stanislas Dehaene
- Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
- The Possibility Principle: How Quantum Physics Can Improve the Way You Think, Live, and Love by Mel Schwartz
- Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
- The Secret Formula of Strategic Thinkers: Winning Steps for Sustained Success by Cory Smith
- The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers by Eric Weiner
How It Is Known That People Think Differently
- Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
- Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein
Brains Infrastructure
- The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker
- The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society by Debra Soh
- The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist
- The Neuroscience of You: How Every Brain Is Different by Chantel Prat
- Screwed Up Somehow But Not Stupid: Life With a Learning Disability by Peter Flom
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Fiction / Brains Infrastructure
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
