This book, initiated by a comparative empirical study on ways of thinking in samples of German and Japanese students, picks up the old question of decision-making between contradicting needs. It analyses - stimulated by striking differences found in the way how the two populations treated the contradiction problem - the general problem of contradiction on the background of a polarity approach to life. On this background either/or decisions, although possibly scientifically correct and pushed forward under time pressure, may not be appropriate to the actual situation of life and thus be wrong. Either/or, neither/nor, and even as-well-as reactions should be regarded as relevant in contradictory situations. This free option is called Balanced Thinking.