You Are Now Less Dumb

How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself

The author of the bestselling You Are Not So Smart gives readers a fighting chance at outsmarting their not-so-smart brains.
 
A mix of popular psychology and trivia, You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality--except we’re not. But that’s okay, because our delusions keep us sane.
 
Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of seventeen ways we fool ourselves every day, including:
  • Enclothed Cognition (the clothes you wear change your behavior and influence your mental abilities)
  • The Benjamin Franklin Effect (how you grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate the people you harm).
  • Deindividuation (Despite our best intentions, we practically disappear when subsumed by a mob mentality)
  • The Misattribution of Arousal (Environmental factors have a greater effect on our emotional arousal than the person right in front of us)
  • Sunk Cost Fallacy (We will engage in something we don’t enjoy just to make the time or money already invested “worth it”)
McRaney also reveals the true price of happiness, and how to avoid falling for our own lies. 
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. View titles by David McRaney

About

The author of the bestselling You Are Not So Smart gives readers a fighting chance at outsmarting their not-so-smart brains.
 
A mix of popular psychology and trivia, You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality--except we’re not. But that’s okay, because our delusions keep us sane.
 
Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of seventeen ways we fool ourselves every day, including:
  • Enclothed Cognition (the clothes you wear change your behavior and influence your mental abilities)
  • The Benjamin Franklin Effect (how you grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate the people you harm).
  • Deindividuation (Despite our best intentions, we practically disappear when subsumed by a mob mentality)
  • The Misattribution of Arousal (Environmental factors have a greater effect on our emotional arousal than the person right in front of us)
  • Sunk Cost Fallacy (We will engage in something we don’t enjoy just to make the time or money already invested “worth it”)
McRaney also reveals the true price of happiness, and how to avoid falling for our own lies. 

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. View titles by David McRaney

Books for National Depression Education and Awareness Month

For National Depression Education and Awareness Month in October, we are sharing a collection of titles that educates and informs on depression, including personal stories from those who have experienced depression and topics that range from causes and symptoms of depression to how to develop coping mechanisms to battle depression.

Read more

Horror Titles for the Halloween Season

In celebration of the Halloween season, we are sharing horror books that are aligned with the themes of the holiday: the sometimes unknown and scary creatures and witches. From classic ghost stories and popular novels that are celebrated today, in literature courses and beyond, to contemporary stories about the monsters that hide in the dark, our list

Read more

Books for LGBTQIA+ History Month

For LGBTQIA+ History Month in October, we’re celebrating the shared history of individuals within the community and the importance of the activists who have fought for their rights and the rights of others. We acknowledge the varying and diverse experiences within the LGBTQIA+ community that have shaped history and have led the way for those

Read more