You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fictio...
"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. ...
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Dec 30, 2011
Lara
rated it: 
like to think that I know just how advertisers are trying to sway my thoughts and opinions and gain my buying power. I also like to think that I am in complete control of such things as my thoughts, opinions, and buying power. But, evidently, I am not so smart.
I like the color red. I also like to think that I know exactly why I like the color red. But, David McRaney says that I am not so smart.
I like to think that I am a good person who would rush to the help of others in an More...
I like the color red. I also like to think that I know exactly why I like the color red. But, David McRaney says that I am not so smart.
I like to think that I am a good person who would rush to the help of others in an More...
Jan 10, 2012
Jamie
rated it: 
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 is a blog turned book that aims to explore many of the common biases and errors in decision-making that have made the field of behavioral economics so active in the last few decades. Author David McRaney confesses to not being a psychologist (hey, it happens) but he does a pretty darn good impersonation of throughout the book’s 48 chapters, each of which
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Jan 08, 2012
Ciara
rated it:
this was just a small, fun book about human psychology. specifically, it is a brief examination of 48 ways humans delude themselves into thinking they may be smarter than they actually are.
most people who have taken an intro psychology class or gotten into an argument on an internet forum are probably familiar with at least a few of the topics this book addresses, such as ad hominem arguments, the straw man fallacy, self-fulfilling prophecies, & the bystander effect. some of the othe More...
most people who have taken an intro psychology class or gotten into an argument on an internet forum are probably familiar with at least a few of the topics this book addresses, such as ad hominem arguments, the straw man fallacy, self-fulfilling prophecies, & the bystander effect. some of the othe More...
Nov 08, 2011
Meg - A Bookish Affair
rated it:
I always like a book that I know I'm going to be thinking about and spouting out facts from long after I close the book; You Are Not So Smart is definitely one of those books. The subject of the book is psychology based but McRaney writes in such a way that these ideas are accessible to everyone even if you don't have a degree in psychology. I found myself saying "Wow" a lot throughout the book.
I like to think of myself as a pretty rational person. I think most of us th More...
I like to think of myself as a pretty rational person. I think most of us th More...
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Nov 25, 2011
John
rated it:
I'm pretty sure I was familiar with a good deal of these topics prior to reading. However, this book does have me considering that it's just my hindsight bias kicking in. It also mentioned a few things I really had no clue about.
Catharsis, for example venting anger/blowing off steam, is actually a bad thing to do and can make those feelings worse in the long run. It suggests cooling off by engaging in an activity that is totally incompatible with anger.
Learned helplessness More...
Catharsis, for example venting anger/blowing off steam, is actually a bad thing to do and can make those feelings worse in the long run. It suggests cooling off by engaging in an activity that is totally incompatible with anger.
Learned helplessness More...
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Dec 02, 2011
Nikki
rated it:
I don't normally consider myself a reader of non-fiction. Okay, yeah, lit crit, and funny things like Damn You Autocorrect! I've even read some Dawkins and such. But I didn't expect this to be something I didn't want to put down. But it is: it made me think a lot about the way I behave, and showed me some of the hypocritical things we all do -- it made me laugh at myself, actually.
It's very easy to understand, but references real psychological experiments and has a reasonably extensive More...
It's very easy to understand, but references real psychological experiments and has a reasonably extensive More...
Nov 19, 2011
Mark
rated it:
The title of this book is spot on. The author starts each chapter with a misconception and a truth that relates to each fallacy. He covers the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, normalcy bias, brand loyalty and about 20 others. There are also scientific studies and examples that show how we fall into these traps in everyday life. The writing style is entertaining and it makes for an enjoyable read. The hope is that by understanding our predisposition to fall into these traps, we can take a moment and
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Dec 29, 2011
Mark
rated it: 
Another in the ever growing list of books demonstrating the weirdness of our minds. This one rolls out the same studies as the others, and suffers from the author's tendency to go for the quick hit wit over clarity.
Chapters are super short. Often that's just fine. McRaney wants to get in his dig and get out. On others, there could have been better and longer explanations for the point.
The book started strong, with an engaging discussions of priming and confirmation bias, and More...
Chapters are super short. Often that's just fine. McRaney wants to get in his dig and get out. On others, there could have been better and longer explanations for the point.
The book started strong, with an engaging discussions of priming and confirmation bias, and More...
Nov 22, 2011
Adil
rated it: 
This is an amazing book....
It is the single book that falls into the category of.....If everyone had to read one book.....this would be it
It tells us about the human imperfection in simplistic, yet empirically proven ways. The major reason why I love this book is because it points out where we commit our prejudices, and how many of those seemingly little problems quickly hoard up and cause harm to someone regularly in an everyday scenario.
KNOW YOUR More...
It is the single book that falls into the category of.....If everyone had to read one book.....this would be it
It tells us about the human imperfection in simplistic, yet empirically proven ways. The major reason why I love this book is because it points out where we commit our prejudices, and how many of those seemingly little problems quickly hoard up and cause harm to someone regularly in an everyday scenario.
KNOW YOUR More...
Nov 19, 2011
Kurt
rated it:
Based on the blog of the same name, You Are Not So Smart hits the highlights of logical fallacies in an entertaining and engaging light. Every chapter is a reminder of how easily we can fool ourselves and each other. At turns revelatory and mind-blowing, this is a quick and thoroughly enjoyable read.
Unfortunately, it's more of an anthology than a treatise: it feels like--because it is--a collection of blog posts. It commits most of the sins that you get from an anthology. There is no u More...
Unfortunately, it's more of an anthology than a treatise: it feels like--because it is--a collection of blog posts. It commits most of the sins that you get from an anthology. There is no u More...
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Dec 02, 2011
Alexander
rated it:
If only books like these could be liquefied and piped into the water supply.
Fox News and MSNBC would self-destruct, and democracy might become something more than the "least-worst" option.
YOU ARE NOT SO SMART is antifreeze for your thinkbox.
Granted, there's nothing new here, but having forty-eight of the most fundamental brain-hacking principles of heuristics theory in one populist, user-friendly package, gives one hope that sanity, rationality, and More...
Fox News and MSNBC would self-destruct, and democracy might become something more than the "least-worst" option.
YOU ARE NOT SO SMART is antifreeze for your thinkbox.
Granted, there's nothing new here, but having forty-eight of the most fundamental brain-hacking principles of heuristics theory in one populist, user-friendly package, gives one hope that sanity, rationality, and More...
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Dec 27, 2011
Stig
rated it:
This book excellently lists a number of the ways we delude ourselves, backs the assertions up with sources and uses examples to illustrate how we this affects us in every day life. It is a real eye opener, and one of those books I found lives in me after I closed the last page. It is not perfect and some of the topics are not delved deeply into (ad hominem is an examples) and could benefit from more examples and fleshing out. The language also changes throughout the book and makes this feel More...
Jan 21, 2012
Milica
rated it:
An interesting read. It will make you think about thinking and learn about imperfections of that process, and you'll probably keep bringing it up during discussions with your friends for some time, to show them they're not as smart as they thought.
Though I've already been aware of most of the things presented here (before you tell me it's just a hindsight bias, I'm an anthropologist interested in cognition and stuff, and happen to know how irrational human beings are), I still found it usef More...
Though I've already been aware of most of the things presented here (before you tell me it's just a hindsight bias, I'm an anthropologist interested in cognition and stuff, and happen to know how irrational human beings are), I still found it usef More...
Jan 21, 2012
Carlos
rated it:
El libro expone sesgos cognitivos y su influencia en la vida diaria en un tono muy divulgativo y con poca profundización. Sin embargo, el libro va de menos a más y en los últimos capítulos se profundiza algo más en los sesgos de atribución y de probabilidad. El capítulo de las expectativas es muy divertido, y sorprendentes los experimentos con expertos enólogos fracasando miserablemente en distinguir un vino tinto de un blanco
No es un mal libro para leer algo muy introductorio a estos temas More...
No es un mal libro para leer algo muy introductorio a estos temas More...
Nov 24, 2011
Dimitris
rated it:
Logic. The paragon of human superiority. People have achieved so much because we're plain smarter than everyone else on this planet. Right?
Maybe not so right. David McRaney, creator of the You Are Not So Smart blog which inspired this book, thinks that people are greatly overestimating their ability to rationally make heads or tails of the world. With a collection of almost 50 articles based on a rich bibliography of psychological, neurological and socilogical studies, the author dec More...
Maybe not so right. David McRaney, creator of the You Are Not So Smart blog which inspired this book, thinks that people are greatly overestimating their ability to rationally make heads or tails of the world. With a collection of almost 50 articles based on a rich bibliography of psychological, neurological and socilogical studies, the author dec More...
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Dec 28, 2011
Chris
rated it:
A breezy, well-packaged reminder of cognitive biases and logical fallacies, with many familiar examples (invisible gorillas, Stanford prison experiment, etc) but also some I was unaware of. I particularly liked the chapters on Normalcy Bias, the Just-World Fallacy, Groupthink, the Spotlight Effect, Catharsis, Extinction Burst, Consistency Bias, and the Fundamental Attribution Error.
This would make a good gift for a teenager--we should be covering this in school. Simply being aware of b More...
This would make a good gift for a teenager--we should be covering this in school. Simply being aware of b More...
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Dec 30, 2011
Nathan
rated it:
This book is an excellent overview of the many cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and heuristics which undercut our illusion of self-aware rationality at every step. If you've read a few brain/behavioural economics books, then you know what McRaney will bring out; the big guns of fallibility are all here. The genius, though, is in the presentation: each "chapter" is only a few pages long, covers a single bias/fallacy/heuristic, describes how it manifests, and recaps related studies
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Jan 17, 2012
The Joy of Booking
rated it:
I love books that show me everything I don’t know. You Are Not So Smart guides the reader through the common logical fallacies and incongruent thinking that plague us all – especially those of us who think we are immune to it (there’s a logical fallacy for that, naturally). The book is laid out in chapters that first list the misconception and the truth, and then go on to explain the situations in which the misconception occurs, or to provide scientific back-up for the rule that disproves the mi
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Jan 29, 2012
Deana
rated it:
This would really be more of a 3.5 stars for me. It was more that "liked it" but not really "really liked it", if you know what I mean.
This is a cute, somewhat educational book about the ways in which our brains take shortcuts in the world. Most of the time, this is beneficial for us -- after all, there is so much going on that if we paid attention to every single thing that is around us or moves a little and we had to tell our bodies to do things like breathe or m More...
This is a cute, somewhat educational book about the ways in which our brains take shortcuts in the world. Most of the time, this is beneficial for us -- after all, there is so much going on that if we paid attention to every single thing that is around us or moves a little and we had to tell our bodies to do things like breathe or m More...
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Oct 26, 2011
Audra (Unabridged Chick)
rated it:
The basis of this immensely entertaining book is McRaney's blog (which is, unsurprisingly, immensely entertaining). A journalist who was inspired by an intro to psychology course, McRaney cogently explains the various ways we delude ourselves and act irrationally. Each essay opens with a 'Misconception' followed by 'The Truth', and then a thorough explanation. As a result, each chapter is a self-contained gem packed with nerdy trivia and fascinating science. They don't necessarily build off
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Jan 24, 2012
Ben
rated it:
I would try to review this book but I have too many cognitive biases and heuristics operating that any recommendation I could give would be too unreliable to be useful for anybody.
If you'd like to become familiar with all the reasons why people seem so content to be willfully ignorant, read this book. Then understand like I did that we are often the biggest and most willing ignoramuses.
Best line: "You might assume someone is trustworthy because they speak well or have a More...
If you'd like to become familiar with all the reasons why people seem so content to be willfully ignorant, read this book. Then understand like I did that we are often the biggest and most willing ignoramuses.
Best line: "You might assume someone is trustworthy because they speak well or have a More...
Feb 14, 2012
Kristin
rated it:
Several of the studies mentioned were also featured in Malcolm Gladwell's books. This seems to be a more condensed verion of those. This author broke studies down into 2-5 page chapters, so he ended up covering a lot of material. I thikn the book ould have been better if shorter or if he had less chapters and went more in-depth. As it was, it was still good, but I got tired of reading it toward the end, and I had started out loving it and not being able to put it down. Now, I question every deci
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Dec 04, 2011
Teni
rated it:
Fascinating. I've always been a psychology junkie (hence the psych minor) and I thought I knew all the fallacies and heuristics and errors, but this book taught me a whole bunch more I never knew existed. Some of the chapters seem like they're right out of my Psych 101 textbook - the fundamental attribution error, the self-serving bias, etc. But some chapters were about topics I'd never even heard of, like embodied cognition. An incredibly easy read, the book is divided into 48 chapters, each on
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Feb 21, 2012
AdultNonFiction
rated it:
TCL Call#: 153 MCRANEY D
Jess - 4 stars
I found this book to be fascinating! It was reminiscent of my college Psychology 101 course but even more interesting. The short, easy-to-read chapters add to the experience (it is after all based on a blog). By essentially pointing out the inherent flaws in human nature, this author allows you to realize your weaknesses so you can build on your strengths because ultimately You Are Not So Smart!
Jess - 4 stars
I found this book to be fascinating! It was reminiscent of my college Psychology 101 course but even more interesting. The short, easy-to-read chapters add to the experience (it is after all based on a blog). By essentially pointing out the inherent flaws in human nature, this author allows you to realize your weaknesses so you can build on your strengths because ultimately You Are Not So Smart!
Jan 19, 2012
Jim
rated it:
This took me a while to get through. Some of the chapters seemed to drag a bit. I'm not quite sure why. I think it was a combination of the vocabulary and sentences that seemed to be (on average) longer than necessary.
Still very interesting stuff though. I'd already heard some of the research mentioned (see Freakonomics, or Predictably Irrational) but the majority of this was new. I think my favorite chapter dealt with how your mind has a hard time dealing with statistical odds. For More...
Still very interesting stuff though. I'd already heard some of the research mentioned (see Freakonomics, or Predictably Irrational) but the majority of this was new. I think my favorite chapter dealt with how your mind has a hard time dealing with statistical odds. For More...
Feb 12, 2012
Aaron
rated it:
A great book. It goes over many topics in psychology, and explains why humans have the fallacies that they do. It reveals that our mistakes come not from inability to do something as much as they come from our human condition. We are destined to fail unless we know about our own biases and our biological screw ups.
In goes from the confirmation bias to expectations, to the self-fulling prophesy, and along the way explains experiments, studies, and thought-experiments that work into a More...
In goes from the confirmation bias to expectations, to the self-fulling prophesy, and along the way explains experiments, studies, and thought-experiments that work into a More...
Dec 28, 2011
Amos
rated it:
Banged this short read out in one sitting.
Very interesting and a fun way to introduce yourself to the realm of psychology/cognition science.
Relates complicating topics to relatable circumstances to the average individual. (Facebook, relationships, etc.)
Recommend it to anyone interested in why they consistently procrastinate, how to decipher a pathological liar, or any other interesting everyday life occurrences.
Very interesting and a fun way to introduce yourself to the realm of psychology/cognition science.
Relates complicating topics to relatable circumstances to the average individual. (Facebook, relationships, etc.)
Recommend it to anyone interested in why they consistently procrastinate, how to decipher a pathological liar, or any other interesting everyday life occurrences.
Jan 08, 2012
I've just picked this book up from the library and have only read the introduction, written by the author, who briefly explained why we, as a society, are generally stupid, and how each of us has an internal dialogue that convinces we are much smarter than we are. So, I can't help but wonder what makes this guy think he's one of the rare truly intelligent humans beings who seemingly has enough authority to write a book telling the rest of us how stupid we are. Is he going to explore the fact tha
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Feb 19, 2012
Verrrrry lukewarm on this book so far.
Ok, I am on chapter 10 and warmed up to the book somewhat. I am also finding out that I am some sort of a stupid sheep. I do like the explanation about why people find the similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy and the Titanic and the Titan. That is pretty interesting. Also,how we also surround ourselves with books, things and people who think like we do and reinforce our opinions. I knew that so this is an example of surrounding myself More...
Ok, I am on chapter 10 and warmed up to the book somewhat. I am also finding out that I am some sort of a stupid sheep. I do like the explanation about why people find the similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy and the Titanic and the Titan. That is pretty interesting. Also,how we also surround ourselves with books, things and people who think like we do and reinforce our opinions. I knew that so this is an example of surrounding myself More...
Jan 25, 2012
Richard
rated it:
This book give very brief overviews of many interesting subjects.
Most of these are covered in more detail in other books like "The Invisible Gorilla," "The Tipping Point," "What the Dog Saw" and "Freakonomics."
If you have not read any of these I would recommend YANSS and then if you are still interested look up and read the others (and I'm sure there are more that I have not named, read).
Most of these are covered in more detail in other books like "The Invisible Gorilla," "The Tipping Point," "What the Dog Saw" and "Freakonomics."
If you have not read any of these I would recommend YANSS and then if you are still interested look up and read the others (and I'm sure there are more that I have not named, read).
