From the Bookshelf of The Reading Challenge Group…

You Are Not So Smart

David McRaney

Start date: December 1, 2016

Finish date: December 31, 2016

Discussion: Group Read Archive 2014-16

Why we're reading this: Genre Group Read (Humour) - December 2016
[close] Genre Group Read (Humour) - December 2016

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Group Read Archive 2014-16

Genre Group Read (Humour) - December 2016 - You Are Not So Smart
By Allison , Quest Hound · 11 posts · 30 views

last updated Dec 28, 2016 04:05PM

Alternate Group Read (Classics) - December 2016 - Mansfield Park
By Allison , Quest Hound · 5 posts · 18 views

last updated Dec 04, 2016 09:34AM

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Dec 13, 2016 Cindy (BKind2Books) rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2016-genre-challenge

This was an entertaining look at how the mind tricks itself - if you've ever watched Brain Games , then you've probably heard of some of these concepts. Of course, it's all clearly part of the entire package - we do things which on the surface look rational, but turn out to be that old friend "monkey mind". We have not come so far evolutionally and are not so smart after all.

Some topics covered:

Priming - priming works best when you are on autopilot. You are unaware of how unaware you are.
Confa This was an entertaining look at how the mind tricks itself - if you've ever watched Brain Games , then you've probably heard of some of these concepts. Of course, it's all clearly part of the entire package - we do things which on the surface look rational, but turn out to be that old friend "monkey mind". We have not come so far evolutionally and are not so smart after all.

Some topics covered:

Priming - priming works best when you are on autopilot. You are unaware of how unaware you are.
Confabulation - You are a story you tell yourself.
The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy - You see patterns everywhere, but some of them are formed by chance and mean nothing.
Procrastination - Procrastination is all about choosing want over should because you don't have a plan for those times when you can expect to be tempted.
Normalcy bias - the sort of people who survive are the sort of people who prepare for the worst and practice ahead of time. Normalcy bias is a state of mind out of which you are attempting to make everything OK by believing it still is.
The Argument from Ignorance - Lack of proof neither confirms nor denies a proposition.
The Straw Man Fallacy - The straw man fallacy takes the facts and assertions of your opponent and replaces them with an artificial argument you feel more comfortable dealing with.
The Just-World Fallacy - You want the world to be fair, so you pretend it is. Just remember the unfair nature of the world, the randomness of birthright, means people often suffer adversity and enjoy opulence through no effort of their own.
The Public Goods Game - Without some form of regulation, slackers and cheaters will crash economic systems because people don't want to feel like suckers.
Groupthink - It turns out, for any plan to work, every team needs at least one asshole who doesn't give a shit if he or she gets fired or exiled or excommunicated. So the next time you are in a group of people trying to reach consensus, be the asshole. Every group needs one, and it might as well be you.
The Affect Heuristic - first impression matter more than you realize. Your risk-avoidance systems are great when the situation is concrete but are pretty crappy when dealing with abstraction.
Selling Out - we all sell out, because we all buy things.
Catharsis - the more effective approach is to just stop. Take your anger off of the stove.
Extinction burst - Classical conditioning keeps you alive. You learn quickly to avoid that which may harm you and seek out that which makes you happy.
Social loafing - Once part of a group, you tend to put in less effort because you know your work will be pooled with others.
Learned Helplessness - When you are able to succeed at easy tasks, hard tasks feel possible to accomplish. When you are unable to succeed at small tasks, everything seems harder. Failing is often the only way to ever get the things you want out of life.
Self-fulfilling Prophecies - when someone believes you are a certain kind of person, you tend to live up to those expectations.
The Illusion of Control - So seek to control the small things, the things that matter, and let them pile up into a heap of happiness.
...more

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