You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself Author: Visit Amazon's David McRaney Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1592407366 | Format: EPUB
You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself Description
Review
"Every chapter is a welcome reminder that you are not so smart-yet you're never made to feel dumb. You Are Not So Smart is a dose of psychology research served in tasty anecdotes that will make you better understand both yourself and the rest of us. It turns out we're much more irrational than most of us think, so give yourself every advantage you can and read this book."
—Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of Reddit.com
"You Are Not So Smart is the go-to blog for understanding why we all do silly things."
—Lifehacker.com
"You'd think from the title that it might be curmudgeonly; in fact, You Are Not So Smart is quite big-hearted."
—Jason Kottke, Kottke.org
"In an Idiocracy dominated by cable TV bobbleheads, government propagandists, and corporate spinmeisters, many of us know that mass ignorance is a huge problem. Now, thanks to David McRaney's mind-blowing book, we can finally see the scientific roots of that problem. Anybody still self-aware enough to wonder why society now worships willful stupidity should read this book."
—David Sirota, author of Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now—Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything
"We're smarter after reading McRaney's book."
—The Charlotte Observer
"Even seasoned psych lovers will learn something new."
—Psychology Today
"McRaney argues, with amusing exasperation..."
—The Wall Street Journal
About the Author
A two-time winner of the William Randolph Hearst Award, journalist David McRaney writes the blog youarenotsosmart.com. A self-described psychology nerd, he lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Gotham; Reprint edition (November 6, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1592407366
- ISBN-13: 978-1592407361
- Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.9 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
I'm a clinical psychologist interested in neuroscience, so much of this material was already familiar to me. Most of the ideas can be found scattered through other books like The Winner's Curse, The Happiness Hypothesis, Predictably Irrational, and others. I've read and admired all of those. I would gladly throw them all away if I could keep You are Not So Smart.
The author understands the science and the facts, and conveys them quite clearly. I didn't find a single error. He writes wonderfully. Crisp, clear, funny, casual, but not too casual. When I read it, I feel I'm chatting with a brilliant buddy. As I understand it, the author is not a professor or scientist. He's certainly smart enough to be one.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, research psychologists generally believed that humans are more or less rational, most of the time. They believed that irrational thinking was caused primarily by disruptive emotions like anger or fear. We now know this is just plain wrong. During the last twenty years or so, research evidence against this view accumulated. Daniel Kahneman became the first psychologist to earn a Nobel Prize for describing the new understanding.
Meanwhile, evolutionary psychology provided a new template for understanding the human mind. It evolved. We often see faces in clouds, but never see clouds in faces. We sometimes mistake a coiled garden hose or rope for a snake, but rarely mistake a snake for a garden hose. These tendencies, and many others like it, reflect our evolutionary history. The reproductive cost of jumping away from a coiled garden hose is very small. The reproductive cost of failing to recognize a dangerous snake is very high.
You do not think rationally, nor does anyone else.
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