A tour through our self-delusions

Michael Bond, contributor

In You Are Not So Smart, David McRaney lays out in entertaining detail four dozen of the ways we trick ourselves every day

THE idea that much of our instinctive decision-making is faulty was first put forward in the 1970s by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who showed in a series of seminal papers that the rules of thumb people use to make judgements often lead them badly astray. Since then, hundreds of popular psychology books have attempted to explore this shortfall in human intelligence and how we might counter it, that number increasing exponentially over the past five years.

In any other area of science publishing this would be over-egging the pudding, but when it comes to learning about and correcting our self-delusions it seems we cannot be told too often. As biologist Robert Trivers said in this magazine on 8 October (page 33): "If you ask me about my self-deception, I can give you stories, chapter and verse, in the past. But can I prevent myself doing the same damn thing again tomorrow? Usually not..."

David McRaney's You Are Not So Smart, derived from his blogof the same name, is a fun, chatty, unpretentious exposition of 48 of the most common mental shortcuts, cognitive biases and logical fallacies. Many have been studied in depth by psychologists, such as our tendency to build fictional narratives to explain our actions (confabulation), or to base estimates of value on a completely irrelevant number we happen to have in mind (beware those "reduced from" offers), and to allow emotions to direct our judgements (not always a good idea). Others are less well known but worth it for their entertainment value alone (most so-called wine experts have trouble telling red from white when blindfolded), or because they may just save your life (if your building catches fire, move fast - most people don't!).

Some of his categories feel a tad contrived. For example, brand loyalty is triggered by not one cognitive bias, but by a host of them. And there is some crossover and conflating of causes: at least three of the delusional tendencies he covers boil down to a search for meaning.

But this is not designed to be scientific: McRaney is a journalist. His accessible approach, while it makes the book feel like a collection of blog entries, could be a major strength if it was his intention to make his readers more mindful of their habitual behaviours and thinking patterns - and more inclined to change them.

Book Information
You Are Not So Smart
by David McRaney
Published by: Gotham Books
$22.50

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/19f1b258/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cculturelab0C20A110C110Ca0Etour0Ethrough0Eour0Eself0Edelusions0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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