Misbelief

What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things

By: Dan Ariely

Narrated by: Simon Jones

The renowned social scientist, professor, and bestselling author of Predictably Irrational delivers his most urgent and compelling book—an eye-opening exploration of the human side of the misinformation crisis—examining what drives otherwise rational people to adopt deeply irrational beliefs.

Misinformation affects all of us on a daily basis—from social media to larger political challenges, from casual conversations in supermarkets, to even our closest relationships. While we recognize the dangers that misinformation poses, the problem is complex—far beyond what policing social media alone can achieve—and too often our limited solutions are shaped by partisan politics and individual interpretations of truth.

In Misbelief, preeminent social scientist Dan Ariely argues that to understand the irrational appeal of misinformation, we must first understand the behavior of “misbelief”—the psychological and social journey that leads people to mistrust accepted truths, entertain alternative facts, and even embrace full-blown conspiracy theories. Misinformation, it turns out, appeals to something innate in all of us—on the right and the left—and it is only by understanding this psychology that we can blunt its effects. Grounded in years of study as well as Ariely’s own experience as a target of disinformation, Misbelief is an eye-opening and comprehensive analysis of the psychological drivers that cause otherwise rational people to adopt deeply irrational beliefs. Utilizing the latest research, Ariely reveals the key elements—emotional, cognitive, personality, and social—that drive people down the funnel of false information and mistrust, showing how under the right circumstances, anyone can become a misbeliever.

Yet Ariely also offers hope. Even as advanced artificial intelligence has become capable of generating convincing fake news stories at an unprecedented scale, he shows that awareness of these forces fueling misbelief make us, as individuals and as a society, more resilient to its allure. Combating misbelief requires a strategy rooted not in conflict, but in empathy. The sooner we recognize that misbelief is above all else a human problem, the sooner we can become the solution ourselves.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Dan Ariely (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Great reasoning

Enjoyed his research into reasons for the misbelief, it’s the info that
Needs to gain more of an audience amongst conspiracy fans.

excellent analyis

While I really enjoyed it, I would have expected more advice towards how to handle disbelievers, with patience and emptathy
empathy.
All in all though, this is a very good description of current times mechanisms.

I hope more of my friends and compatriots read this book and understand each other better

This book is an amazing research conducted by Dan, who has been affected by the misbelievers. I hope such literature will help each of us to think and come up with better systems that will encourage trust environment versus the one we face today.

Outstanding Plan

This book is a must read and thoroughly full of hope. Beautiful research combined with his personal experiences and examples that I could identify with. Thank You.

Amazing science and an amazing story!

Must read for our current era! Ariely again explains how the ways we and others think impact everything.

Dan's advice could be dangerous

One if the conclusions of this book is to not avoid people who are slipping into "misbelief" because those people need good influences in their life.

That may be well and good for well balanced and self assured people who are confident in themselves, but it is dangerous for people who themselves may be prone to misbelief or who are being abused by the misbeliver. Some people could find themselves drawn to misbelief if they don't remove themselves from exposure. And I am prone to think there is a strong correlation between those prone to undue self righousness and abusers. Dan's book does not even address the mental or physical abuse that people prone to misbelief can inflict on their family and friends. Often family and friends abandon the misbeliver not because of their beliefs alone, but because of the abuse inflicted on them by the misbeliver, and no one should be made to feel that if they stuck it out they could change an abusive person.

I also think Dan used an example of OCD very carelessly, with clearly no real understanding of the condition. It isn't just about washing hands too often; there are real and unhealthy patterns to OCD which should not be glossed over.

Overall, I think the book brings up many good points and examples, but those two glaring missteps really bring down my feelings about the book.

Insightful research

I really enjoyed listening to this book. The narrator was appeasing. It was an interesting listen, and not bogged down by fluff or over-explanation. The author’s personal experience with misbelief is a theme throughout the book and helps the reader better understand the author’s insight and analysis. I appreciated that this book was well organized and cohesive in its flow of topics relating to misbelief. The book focuses heavily on pandemic related misinformation and misbelief because this was a unique period in time where it became much more prevalent in our society. The author’s sociological and personal analysis of this issue makes good sense and I have to agree that trust is a huge factor that he rounds out the book with. I enjoyed the various quotes throughout, as well as the “hopefully helpful” suggestions. I even laughed out loud a few times at the unexpected humor sprinkled throughout the book. I think we could all benefit from reading this book and learning how to better approach and remedy this multifaceted societal problem.

Author in the Lions’ Den

I think the principal value of this book comes from Ariely’s willingness to validate his case against Misbelief by facing the perpetrators. Rather than just trying to destroy their malice and ignorance he chose to try to understand their positions and the pain and neediness that drove them down what he calls the Funnel of Misbelief.

He takes the Reader through all the steps of their devolution down The Funnel from initial introduction through engagement and finally to commitment. He also tries to offer us tips to help us avoid following them down.

If I have one concern about his approach it is that he often detours into research and experiments others have done to strengthen his case when his description has already convinced us of the validity of his point. The accompanying graphs and charts in the PDF would have adequately done that.

I’m sorry for what Ariely has gone through but he has used his experience to educate the rest of us to the dangers of Misbelief. Hopefully we will use those lessons to resist it in the Future. Four Stars. ****

Great book

This book helps to gain understanding towards opposing views. Highly recommend it. It opened my mind to the views of people I do not normally agree with and it helped me gain empathy and see why they think the way they do

Misbelief & Blindspot

MISBELIEF & Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji Should be part of a course on discovering and dismantling subconscious defensive systems!!