You Are Not So Smart
Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, an d 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself
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4.3 • 139 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise.
You believe you are a rational, logical being who sees the world as it really is, but journalist David McRaney is here to tell you that you're as deluded as the rest of us. But that's OK- delusions keep us sane. You Are Not So Smart is a celebration of self-delusion. It's like a psychology class, with all the boring parts taken out, and with no homework.
Based on the popular blog of the same name, You Are Not So Smart collects more than 46 of the lies we tell ourselves everyday, including:
Dunbar's Number - Humans evolved to live in bands of roughly 150 individuals, the brain cannot handle more than that number. If you have more than 150 Facebook friends, they are surely not all real friends. Hindsight bias - When we learn something new, we reassure ourselves that we knew it all along. Confirmation bias - Our brains resist new ideas, instead paying attention only to findings that reinforce our preconceived notions. Brand loyalty - We reach for the same brand not because we trust its quality but because we want to reassure ourselves that we made a smart choice the last time we bought it.
Packed with interesting sidebars and quick guides on cognition and common fallacies, You Are Not So Smart is a fascinating synthesis of cutting-edge psychology research to turn our minds inside out.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McRaney, a Hattiesburg, Miss., resident and two-time winner of the William Randolph Hearst Award, writes simplified descriptions of psychology experiments on his blog youarenotsosmart.com. He soon found success, receiving between 17,000 to 25,000 hits a day with 6,000 subscribers to the site's RSS feed. Now McRaney's past blog posts resurface in this collection, which he describes as "a compendium of information about self-delusion and the wonderful ways we succumb to it." The format first presents "The Misconception" ("You are a strong individual who doesn't conform unless forced to") and "The Truth" ("It takes little more than an authority figure or social pressure to get you to obey, because conformity is a survival instinct"). The "Conformity" chapter describes how hoax phone calls convinced fast-food managers to strip-search employees, followed by the famous Stanley Milgram obedience experiment in which unsuspecting subjects delivered electric shocks to a screaming actor. Other brief essays cover quitting an addiction cold turkey, first impressions, behavior as a reflection of personality, blind taste tests, and self-fulfilling prophecies. In popularizing these experiments, extracted from psychology books and journals, McRaney is poised to follow in the footsteps of folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand, who also mined academic publications when he popularized urban legends in a series of books.
Customer Reviews
You are Not So Smart
Well…the premise of the book intrigues me. Perhaps I am not so smart. But I am now buying the book to find out. I now think I am being scammed. So perhaps I am not so smart as I am now thinking I am being fooled. But if I were smart and not so ethical….I would just find a free download and not pay any money to find out that I am dumb. Interesting cunumdrum I now face. But I think I will go ethical and legal and buy the book. Perhaps I can learn how to teach family and friends that they are not so smart and give me some money. LOL
Smart
After reading this I feel I'm not intelligent enough to write a review but here it goes... It was gewd!
Great book
Found myself laughing many times.