You Are Not So Smart

An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise, in the bestselling tradition of Why Do Men Have Nipples? and Lies My Teacher Told Me.

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, you are as deluded as the rest of us. But that's OK-delusions keep us sane. Collecting more than eighty of the everyday delusions that make us feel like logical, rational beings, McRaney has produced a fascinating combination of popular science, psychology, and trivia to turn our minds inside out.

Based on his enormously popular blog by the same name, You Are Not So Smart covers a wide range of topics drawn from all aspects of life, such as coffee (it doesn't stimulate you; it's just a cure for caffeine withdrawal), placebo buttons (those fake thermostats and crosswalk knobs that give us the illusion of control), 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), and 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 infused with humor and wit.

Translating the latest findings from the realms of psychology and economics into eye-opening revelations, McRaney reveals the amusing truth about the mountain of falsified data our brains operate under each day.

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.