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

By: David McRaney

Narrated by: Don Hagen

Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2011 David McRaney (P)2011 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"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)

Interesting, but Not Entirely Novel

Where does You Are Not So Smart rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's a strong entry

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The content

Which character – as performed by Don Hagen – was your favorite?

There was only one character - the narrator.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Not really

Any additional comments?

If you are interested in this sort of thing and/or listen to podcasts, some of the stories in this book will not be new to you. The Stanford marshmallow and prison experiments were both topics I was well aware of before this book came along. However, I did still learn quite a bit, so it wasn't a waste of time.

Introduction to Basic Cognitive Fallacies

This book provides a brief overview of many cognitive fallacies (like confirmation bias, hindsight bias, groupthink, and spotlight effect) and refers to research studies that have been cited in so many books already. If you're not familiar with any of the concepts, it's a great introduction.

Entertaining but scary!

Some of the material I had heard before, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of this informative book. It was a very entertaining read with quite a bit of humor. I came away from it throwing my hands up and realizing that all my opinions, likes, and beliefs are pure bunk! I truly must be an idiot, yes indeed. Lots of food for thought here.
Don Hagen did a very nice narration.
All in all, a highly recommended read!

Enlightening, entertaining, easy listening

The only bad reviews that I have read about this book are from expert psychologists, who say that its author discusses nothing original but instead rehashes other researcher's ideas.

But so what? I enjoy the audio book, anyway. It is easy listening that entertains while providing an overview of cognitive psychology. It sustained my interest for enough hours that I got my money's worth.

Overview of several psychological effects

I enjoyed listening to this book. It was fun hearing about the many ways our memories fail us and the studies that support these findings. There were 40+ different psychological effects. Each started with a misconception about how we perceive our memories and the world, followed by the reality. Then the author went into detail about the scientific studies and findings. I liked this format of organization, although in some examples I was hoping for more detail.

One small organizational suggestion would be to group similar effects into categories. I'm having a hard time recalling all 40+ effects, although I can recall the general scope of the book. I think categories would have made the information easier to record and recall.

Overall, it was a fun listen! The narrator sounded familiar even though I don't think I've listened to him before. It was well done.

Highly informative, well writand very entertaining

I loved this book. McRaney has covered some very useful areas of recent research on the brain and how it can make "us" feel like we are in control, when in fact we are highly pre-disposed to certain kinds of behavior and thought processes. It is often very amusing and certainly never dull. I find myself often referring to it in conversations because it provides so many good illustrations of the way in which our perception/thinking is flawed and/or foretold by our evolutionary development. I can't wait for his next book.

A must read!

I have always been a big fan of a popular psych book -- and this is one of the best I have read so far: Clear, witty, and informative!

Good run down of a wide range of classic studies

I really enjoyed this audio program. The narrator has a great voice for presenting this sort of material. The studies presented are from a wide range of areas in psychology but are all classics in their fields. While I was familiar with much of this material, I still found it a useful refresher with interesting angles.

Excellent!

It is a personal paradigm shifter if you contemplate enough in the consequences of its content especially in your daily experiences, judgments and fights :)

Great information - not always cohesively told

I enjoyed this book tremendously. My only critique is that some chapters were what seemed to be just sentences long, while others were hours. Each chapter seemed to be written mostly independent of the others, which led to some awkward repetition at times.
Still, I highly recommend it.