You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, an d 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself

David McRaney

Penguin, Oct 27, 2011 - Humor - 320 pages

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.

  Packed with interesting sidebars and quick guides on cognition and common fallacies, You Are Not So Smart is a fascinating synthesis of cutting-edge psychology research to turn our minds inside out.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Sarah220 - LibraryThing

A survey of all the ways your brain doesn't work as well as you think it does/ should. I found the book quite interesting although at times the details of the studies got a little dry and the snarky ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - BenKline - LibraryThing

This was a fun, interesting look at the different levels of psychological impacts we put on ourselves. The ways we rationalize things or the ways we warp our perceptions of the world to view it as we ...

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.

Bibliographic information

• Title: You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, an d 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself
• Author: David McRaney
• Edition: unabridged
• Publisher: Penguin, 2011
• ISBN: 1101545356, 9781101545355
• Length: 320 pages
• Subjects: Humor / Form / Essays; Psychology / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition; Self-Help / Personal Growth / General