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THE MISCONCEPTION: Men who have sex with RealDolls are insane, and women who marry eighty-year-old billionaires are gold diggers. THE TRUTH: The RealDoll and rich old sugar daddies are both supernormal releasers.
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David McRaney |
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Son otuz yildir yapilan calismalara gore, hepimizin kendimizi is arkadaslarimizdan daha becerikli, arkadaslarimizdan daha ahlakli, sokaktaki insanlardan daha dost canlisi, tanidiklarimizdan daha zeki, ortalama bir insandan daha cekici, ayni dine mensup oldugumuz insanlardan daha az on yargili, ayni yasta oldugumuz insanlardan daha genc gorunumlu, tanidigimiz insanlarin cogundan daha iyi sofor, kardeslerimizden daha iyi evlat oldugumuzu ve o..
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David McRaney |
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4303065
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While driving and talking on a cell phone, how much of your world do you miss? The research findings suggest you could have your eyes wide open, but fail to see the car, the bike, or the deer about to cross your path.
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David McRaney |
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To match the complexity of your conscious experience and your unconscious processing, to deal with the constant confusion bombarding your senses and the noisy chatter of the agencies within your mind, you've developed the ability to knit everything together into something simpler and less accurate, something less informative but more entertaining, and most times more useful.
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David McRaney |
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matter how good you've got it, you are no stranger to tears.
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David McRaney |
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Ignorance of the halo effect can easily set in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy in which attitude changes behavior, which then loops back around over and over for the persons both giving and receiving a label.
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David McRaney |
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fcd6e35
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If a politician can come across as likable--as nice, genuine, and friendly--she's won most of her votes already. That initial appraisal will spread and elevate all other appraisals. Gaffes will be forgiven.
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David McRaney |
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Remember, there's always someone out there willing to sell eyeballs to advertisers by offering a guaranteed audience of people looking for validation.
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David McRaney |
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THE MISCONCEPTION: Some coincidences are so miraculous, they must have meaning. THE TRUTH: Coincidences are a routine part of life, even the seemingly miraculous ones. Any meaning applied to them comes from your mind.
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David McRaney |
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THE MISCONCEPTION: You are a strong individual who doesn't conform unless forced to. THE TRUTH: It takes little more than an authority figure or social pressure to get you to obey, because conformity is a survival instinct.
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David McRaney |
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79fb60b
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THE MISCONCEPTION: Knowing a person's history makes it easier to determine what sort of person they are. THE TRUTH: You jump to conclusions based on how representative a person seems to be of a preconceived character type.
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David McRaney |
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4f5e518
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Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, both philosophers, wrote a book about this in 2004 called The Rebel Sell. It's available in the United States as Nation of Rebels. The central theme of the book is you can't rage against the machine through rebellious consumption. Here's
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David McRaney |
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THE MISCONCEPTION: You take randomness into account when determining cause and effect. THE TRUTH: You tend to ignore random chance when the results seem meaningful or when you want a random event to have a meaningful cause.
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David McRaney |
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THE MISCONCEPTION: When you are joined by others in a task, you work harder and become more accomplished. THE TRUTH: Once part of a group, you tend to put in less effort because you know your work will be pooled together with others'.
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David McRaney |
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aed76ac
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THE MISCONCEPTION: When your emotions run high, people can look at you and tell what you are thinking and feeling. THE TRUTH: Your subjective experience is not observable, and you overestimate how much you telegraph your inner thoughts and emotions.
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David McRaney |
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568f7ca
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When those beliefs fall apart, you tend not to notice. You have a deep desire to be right all of the time and a deeper desire to see yourself in a positive light both morally and behaviorally.
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David McRaney |
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THE MISCONCEPTION: You are too smart to join a cult. THE TRUTH: Cults are populated by people just like you.
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David McRaney |
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In the 1960s, it took months before someone figured out they could sell tie-dyed shirts and bell bottoms to anyone who wanted to rebel. In the 1990s, it took weeks to start selling flannel shirts and Doc Martens to people in the Deep South. Now people are hired by corporations to go to bars and clubs and observe what the counterculture is into and have it on the shelves in the mall stores right as it becomes popular. The counterculture, the..
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David McRaney |
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In 2010, UCLA researchers conducted a survey of more than 25,000 people ages 18-75 and found that the majority rated their own attractiveness as about a seven out of ten. This suggests that the average person thinks he is a little better looking than the average person. About a third of the people under 30 rated themselves as somewhere around a nine. That sort of confidence is fun to think about considering that it is impossible for everyon..
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David McRaney |
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THE MISCONCEPTION: Predictions about your future are subject to forces beyond your control. THE TRUTH: Just believing a future event will happen can cause it to happen if the event depends on human behavior.
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David McRaney |
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THE TRUTH: You are driven to create and form groups and then believe others are wrong just because they are others.
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David McRaney |
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Decades of research into a variety of cognitive biases show you tend to see the world through thick Coke-bottle lenses forged from belief and smudged with attitudes and ideologies.
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David McRaney |
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THE MISCONCEPTION: You are skeptical of generalities. THE TRUTH: You are prone to believing vague statements and predictions are true, especially if they are positive and address you personally.
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David McRaney |
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Branding builds on this by giving you the option to create the person you think you are through choosing to align yourself with the mystique of certain products.
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David McRaney |
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If you were to shuffle a deck and draw out ten cards, the chances of the sequence you drew coming up are in the trillions, no matter what the cards are. If you drew out an ordered suit, it would be astonishing, but the chances are the same as any other set of ten cards. The meaning is a human construct. Look
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David McRaney |
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narrative bias--a bias in that when given the option, you prefer to give and receive information in narrative format.
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David McRaney |
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Wine tasters will mention all sorts of things they can taste in a fine wine, as if they were a human spectrograph with the ability to sense the molecular makeup of their beverage. Research shows, however, this perception can be hijacked, fooled, and might just be completely wrong.
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David McRaney |
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Expensive wine is like anything else that is expensive: The expectation it will taste better actually makes it taste better.
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David McRaney |
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If you suppose it could have happened, you are far less likely to question yourself as to whether it did.
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David McRaney |
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As comedian Tim Minchin says in his song "Storm," "Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine."
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David McRaney |
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A long day of dealing with bullshit often leads to an evening of no-decision television ...
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David McRaney |
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the very act of looking down on others made people more confident.
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David McRaney |
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you expect better performances from attractive people, but when they fail, you are also more likely to forgive them.
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David McRaney |
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It turns out, for any plan to work, every team needs at least one asshole who doesn't give a shit if he or she gets fired or exiled or excommunicated. For a group to make good decisions, they must allow dissent and convince everyone they are free to speak their mind without risk of punishment.
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David McRaney |
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Whatever groups you don't belong to become the groups who you think will be bowled over by messages you don't agree with.
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David McRaney |
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The illusion of control is a peculiar thing because it often leads to high self-esteem and a belief your destiny is yours for the making more than it really is. This over-optimistic view can translate into actual action, rolling with the punches and moving ahead no matter what. Often, this attitude helps lead to success. Eventually, though, most people get punched in the stomach by life.
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David McRaney |
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Who you think you are is sort of like a movie based on true events, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
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David McRaney |
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After more than a thousand of these buzz-report-introspect-text moments, Graham looked over the data and found that couples who routinely performed difficult tasks together as partners were also more likely to like each other. Over the course of his experiments, he found that partners tended to feel closer, more attracted to, and more in love with each other when their skills were routinely challenged.
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David McRaney |
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Just spending time together is not enough, he said. The sorts of activities you engage in are vital. Graham concluded you are driven to grow, to expand, to add to your abilities and knowledge. When you satisfy this motivation for self-expansion by incorporating aspects of your romantic partner or friend into your own skills, philosophies and self, it does more to strengthen your bond than any other act of love. This opens the door to one of..
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David McRaney |
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ed1c662
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politicians who bring out charts and graphs tend to fail, and those who use anecdotes tend to win. Stories make sense on an emotional level, so anything that conjures fear, empathy, or pride will trump confusing statistics. It causes you to buy a security system for your house but neglect to purchase radon detectors. It makes you carry pepper spray while you clog your arteries with burritos. It installs metal detectors in schools but leaves..
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David McRaney |
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The affect heuristic speaks to your basic sensibilities about risk and reward while neglecting the big picture and the dangers of complex systems that require study and deeper understanding.
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David McRaney |
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Philosopher Daniel Dennett calls seeing yourself in this way heterophenomenology. Basically, he suggests when you explain why you feel the way you do, or why you behaved as you did, to take it with a grain of salt, as if you were listening to someone tell you about their night out. When you listen to someone else tell a story, you expect some embellishment and you know they are only telling you how the events seemed to transpire to them. In..
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David McRaney |
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The affect heuristic is stronger still when something is familiar or speaks to the primal brain. The feeling you get in your gut telling you yes or no, good or bad is greatly influenced by the affect heuristic.
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David McRaney |
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You are always looking for risks and rewards, but when you want to believe something is good you will unconsciously turn down the volume on the bad qualities, and vice versa.
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David McRaney |