About this item
The author of the bestselling You Are Not So Smart shares more discoveries about self-delusion and irrational thinking, and gives readers a fighting chance at outsmarting their not-so-smart brains David McRaneys first book, You Are Not So Smart, evolved from his wildly popular blog of the same name. A mix of popular psychology and trivia, McRaneys insights have struck a chord with thousands, and his blog--and now podcasts and videos--have become an Internet phenomenon.Like You Are Not So Smart, You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality--except were not. But thats okay, because our delusions keep us sane. Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of fifteen more ways we fool ourselves every day, includingThe Misattribution of Arousal Environmental factors have a greater affect on our emotional arousal than the person right in front of usSunk Cost Fallacy We will engage in something we dont enjoy just to make the time or money already invested worth itDeindividuation Despite our best intentions, we practically disappear when subsumed by a mob mentalityMcRaney also reveals the true price of happiness, why Benjamin Franklin was such a badass, and how to avoid falling for our own lies.
About the Author
David McRaney is a science journalist fascinated with brains, minds, and culture. He created the podcast You Are Not So Smart based on his 2009 internationally bestselling book of the same name and its followup, You Are Now Less Dumb. Before that, he cut his teeth as a newspaper reporter covering Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and in the Pine Belt region of the Deep South. Later, he covered things like who tests rockets for NASA, what it is like to run a halfway home for homeless people who are HIV-positive, and how a family sent their kids to college by making and selling knives.Since then, he has been an editor, photographer, voiceover artist, television host, journalism teacher, lecturer, and tornado survivor. Most recently, after finishing his latest book, How Minds Change, he wrote, produced, and recorded a six-hour audio documentary exploring the history of the idea and the word: genius.
