Presents for impoving rationality or reducing superstition?

I have found the game Settlers Of Catan to be useful for illustrating basic economic principles like gains from trade, pareto efficiency, and price forming mechanisms. It is also pretty good for helping people to build a self image as someone who can connect calculatingly rational strategic plans (counting dots given various build plans) to specific short term plans (knowing what can be safely offered and what to trade for) which are accomplished through structured conversations that function as both resource negotiations and playfully friendly conversation. Being good at the game involves a sort of "end to end metabolic pathway" where any hiccups at any stage can sabotage the total performance, so it tests and exercises a lot of elements in a person's character and thinking in a pleasantly comprehensive way.

As one example, I've noticed that some women do poorly at the game at first because they seem to have a self image around being "nice" where niceness includes something like "never being at all demanding about getting their fair share out of mutually beneficial voluntary associations". But if they play a reasonable number of games in a supportive environment then they learn to be somewhat demanding (enough to win sometimes) in ways that are compatible with the rest of their self image.

Other times there will be people whose early big lesson is stopping to consider multiple build plans to see which will lead to accumulating the most resources fastest based on statistical dice expectations. Initially, they'll build a road half way to one build site and then change their mind and build a road and settlement to a different place, not because something surprising happened that motivated the change in plans, but just because they didn't stop to think about what they really wanted and were acting on a series of vague opportunity-based impulses. As they learn, their play becomes much more directed.

The thing I'm not certain of is whether such lessons translate into real life performance improvements, but it seems to me that they probably do.

Since happiness research generally says "spend money on experiences rather than possessions", perhaps buying them tickets to a show at a planetarium or to the closest museum of science or natural history....

If they are a reader, try Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It is currently the closest thing to Less Wrong in book form while still being readable and interesting to the layman. On the other hand, your gift would probably be more appreciated if it was chosen to reflect their interests rather than yours.

Magic tricks are good way to teach children to be skeptical of miracles.

See also, for younger people. This Christmas I gave Dawkins' "The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True" to my 12-year-old nephew. Generally, though, I don't try to push such things on anyone, child or adult. The book speaks for itself, and what he makes of it is up to him. If I know someone's interests, I'll try to find something that fits with that, rather than what I think they ought to be interested in.

If you're not afraid of the possibility of offending someone, I'd suggest giving them a cheap gift (in addition to an actual thoughtful one) that gently mocks their favorite superstition. For instance, one year I got my Korean friend a cheap electric fan with no turn-off timer on it (a reference to the popular Korean belief in fan death). She was annoyed but somewhat amused, and has since discarded that particular belief.

EDIT: A personal favorite is The [blank] of [blank] by means of natural [blank] or the [blank] of favoured [blank] in the struggle for life, a copy of Darwin's Origin of Species with any word not appearing in the King James Bible blanked out.

Doesn't believing in the 2012 apocalypse myth indicate the level of critical thinking too low to be receptive to any kind of rational thought? This blog entry could be a start.

If science didn't move on so fast, I'd suggest some Isaac Asimov writing on science. Got me at age twelve. Is there any that isn't horribly outdated in 2011?

College age to middle age ... I can't see a frontal assault working to any degree, and the trouble with anti-epistemology is that it is quite good at defending itself. So the question is how to white-ant it. This Hitchens series is hilarious and has effectively introduced a few people to the very notion that he might not be a semimythical fire-breathing dragon of scepticism. This suggests finding writers who are engaging and highly readable and carry reason as their secret (to the anti-epistemologist) payload.

I'm giving everyone vitamin D as a stocking stuffer this year.

Doesn't believing in the 2012 apocalypse indicate the level of critical thinking too low to be receptive to any kind of rational thought? To encourage one to develop some level of critical thinking, you may want to look at this blog entry.