Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

by Adam Grant

  groups and, 139

  of groups vs. individuals, 131

  intergroup contact and, 139

  in Israel-Palestine conflict, 130

  racist, 121–22, 139–41

  rethinking timeline for, 135

  shaky foundations of, 139

  in sports rivalries, 127

  tribes and, 136n

  see also prejudice; rivalries

  stereotypes, arbitrariness of, 133–34

  counterfactual thinking as destabilizing, 134–40

  stereotyping, IQ scores and, 24–25

  stock market, influence of sports matches on, 126

  Storm King Mountain wildfire, 6–7

  stress:

  learned responses to, 5–7

  Murray’s experiment on, 55–58, 60, 74

  Strohminger, Nina, 40n

  summarizing, in motivational interviewing, 153

  task conflict, 78–80, 79

  disagreeable people and, 83, 84

  as encouraged by disagreeable people, 90

  encouragement of, 88

  politician mindset and, 85–86

  relationship conflict and, 90, 91–93

  rethinking as fostered by, 80, 253

  Taylor, Breonna, 10

  teachers, teaching:

  Berger as, 198–203

  Grant as, 195–98

  lecturing vs. active learning in, 190–93, 196

  lifelong learning and, 185–203

  McCarthy as, 185–87, 189–90, 203

  Nozick as, 194–95

  textbooks and, 185–87

  unlearning and, 188–90

  technology, exponential expansion of, 17

  TED talks, 192, 195, 196

  teenagers, see kids

  test-taking, rethinking and, 3–4

  Tetlock, Phil, 18, 67

  Tewfik, Basima, 50, 51n

  textbooks, 185–87

  Theseus paradox, 132–33

  Time, 36–37

  Tómasdóttir, Halla, 35–36

  in campaign for Iceland’s presidency, 36, 49, 53–54

  impostor syndrome and, 36, 38, 49, 52–54

  totalitarian ego, 59–61, 73, 74

  Toy Story (film), 82

  tribes:

  identity and, 126

  stereotyping and, 136n

  Trump, Donald, in 2016 election, 66–67, 69–71, 70, 71

  tunnel vision, 235n

  life choices and, 228–29

  Tussing, Danielle, 52

  2008 financial crisis, 35–36, 45

  Uganda, civil strife in, 155–57, 159

  uncertainty, 53

  unlearning, 2, 12, 188–90

  kids and, 189–90, 256

  in stress situations, 5–7

  see also rethinking

  Urban, Tim, 45

  vaccination:

  autism mistakenly linked to, 144, 158–59

  unfounded fear of, 143–44

  vaccine whisperers, 145–49, 158–59

  Voldemort (char.), 146–47

  Vonnegut, Kurt, 205

  Wales, career choices in, 233n

  Walker, Candice, 242–43

  Walker, John, 87–88, 89

  Weick, Karl, 7

  Wharton School, 9

  Mean Reviews video at, 214

  “what do you want to be” question, 225–26, 230, 231, 232

  WhatsApp, 24

  white supremacists, Davis’s encounters with, 121–22, 139–41, 151

  Whitman, Walt, 165

  Wilde, Oscar, 77

  wildfires, firefighters’ behavior in, 1–2, 5–7

  workplace:

  best practices in, 216–17

  grades as poor predictor of performance in, 195

  learning cultures at, 205–22

  psychological safety and, see psychological safety

  World War II, 56

  Wright, Katharine, 91

  Wright, Wilbur and Orville, 77, 81

  as built-in challenge network, 89–90

  in conflict over propeller, 91–93

  Wrzesniewski, Amy, 242

  X (company), 86

  Young Men and Fire (Maclean), 5

  Zuckerberg, Mark, 8

  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ADAM GRANT is an organizational psychologist at Wharton, where he has been the top-rated professor for seven straight years. He is one of TED's most popular speakers, his books have sold millions of copies, his talks have been viewed more than 25 million times, and his podcast WorkLife with Adam Grant has topped the charts. His pioneering research has inspired people to rethink fundamental assumptions about motivation, generosity, and creativity. He has been recognized as one of the world's 10 most influential management thinkers and Fortune's 40 under 40, and has received distinguished scientific achievement awards from the American Psychological Association and the National Science Foundation. Adam received his B.A. from Harvard and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and he is a former Junior Olympic springboard diver. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and their three children.

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  * In an analysis of over 40 million tweets, Americans were more likely than Canadians to use words like sh*t, b*tch, hate, and damn, while Canadians favored more agreeable words like thanks, great, good, and sure.

  * In building a team, there are some dimensions where fit is important and others where misfit adds value. Research suggests that we want people with dissimilar traits and backgrounds but similar principles. Diversity of personality and experience brings fresh ideas for rethinking and complementary skills for new ways of doing. Shared values promote commitment and collaboration.

  * How well we take criticism can depend as much on our relationship with the messenger as it does on the message. In one experiment, people were at least 40 percent more receptive to criticism after they were told “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.” It’s surprisingly easy to hear a hard truth when it comes from someone who believes in your potential and cares about your success.

  * Pay isn’t a carrot we need to dangle to motivate people—it’s a symbol of how much we value them. Managers can motivate people by designing meaningful jobs in which people have freedom, mastery, belonging, and impact. They can show appreciation by paying people well.

  * In a meta-analysis of persuasion attempts, two-sided messages were more convincing than one-sided messages—as long as people refuted the main point of the other side. If they just presented both sides without taking a stance, they were less persuasive than if they preached only their side.

  * When Monica Seles was stabbed on a tennis court in 1993, I know at least one Steffi Graf fan who celebrated. In the 2019 NBA finals, when Kevin Durant went down with an injury, some Toronto Raptors fans started cheering, proving that even Canadians are capable of cruelty. One sports radio host argued, “There is not a single fan in professional sports who isn’t happy when an opposing big-time player gets injured and in theory will make your team’s path to success easier.” With all due respect, if you care more about whether your team wins a game than whether a human being is hurt in real life, you might be a sociopath.

  * The stock market impact of soccer losses is the subject of extensive debate: although a number of studies have demonstrated the effect, others have failed to support it. My hunch is that it’s more likely to occur in countries where the sport is most popular, the tea
m is expected to win, the match is high stakes, and the loss is a near miss. Regardless of how sports influence markets, we know they can affect moods. One study of European military officers showed that when their favorite soccer team loses on Sunday, they’re less engaged at work on Monday—and their performance might suffer as a result.

  * This isn’t to say that stereotypes never have a basis in reality. Psychologists find that when comparing groups, many stereotypes match up with the average in a group, but that doesn’t mean they’re useful for understanding individual members of the group. Thousands of years ago, when it was rare to interact with different groups, beliefs about the tendencies of different tribes might have helped our ancestors protect their own tribe. Yet today, when intergroup interactions are so common, assumptions about a group no longer have the same utility: it’s much more helpful to learn something about individuals. The same psychologists have shown that our stereotypes become consistently and increasingly inaccurate when we’re in conflict with another group—and when we’re judging the ideologies of groups that are very different from our own. When a stereotype spills over into prejudice, it’s a clue that it might be time to think again.

  * Psychologists have actually studied this recently and found that the arbitrary names of zodiac signs can give rise to stereotypes and discrimination. Virgo was translated into Chinese as “virgin,” which calls to mind prejudice against old virgins—spinsters—as critical, germophobic, fussy, and picky.

  * It seems that humans have understood the magic of talking ourselves into change for thousands of years. I learned recently that the word abracadabra comes from a Hebrew phrase that means “I create as I speak.”

  * The peace talks fell apart when the Ugandan president disregarded Betty’s request to set the ground rules for the peace talks and instead publicly threatened Kony, who retaliated by massacring several hundred people in Atiak. Devastated, Betty left and went to work for the World Bank. A decade later, she initiated another round of peace talks with the rebels. She returned to Uganda as the chief mediator, spending her own money instead of accepting funds from the government so she could work independently. She was on the verge of success when Kony backed out at the last minute. Today, his rebel army has shrunk to a fraction of its original size and is no longer considered a major threat.

  * Quaker retreats have “clearness committees” that serve this very purpose, posing questions to help people crystallize their thinking and resolve their dilemmas.

  * When media headlines proclaim a divided America on gun laws, they’re missing a lot of complexity. Yes, there’s a gap of 47 to 50 percentage points between Republicans and Democrats on support for banning and buying back assault weapons. Yet polls show bipartisan consensus on required background checks (supported by 83 percent of Republicans and 96 percent of Democrats) and mental health screenings (favored by 81 percent of Republicans and 94 percent of Democrats).

  * Climatologists go further, noting that within denial there are at least six different categories: arguing that (1) CO2 is not increasing; (2) even if CO2 is increasing, warming is not happening; (3) even if warming is happening, it’s due to natural causes; (4) even if humans are causing warming, the impact is minimal; (5) even if the human impact is not trivial, it will be beneficial; and (6) before the situation becomes truly dire, we’ll adapt or solve it. Experiments suggest that giving science deniers a public platform can backfire by spreading false beliefs, but rebutting their arguments or their techniques can help.

  * When reporters and activists discuss the consequences of climate change, complexity is often lacking there as well. The gloom-and-doom message can create a burning platform for those who fear a burning planet. But research across twenty-four countries suggests that people are more motivated to act and advocate when they see the collective benefits of doing so—like economic and scientific advancement and building a more moral and caring community. People across the spectrum of climate skepticism, from alarmed to doubtful, are more determined to take initiative when they believe it would produce identifiable benefits. And instead of just appealing to stereotypical liberal values like compassion and justice, research suggests that journalists can spur more action by emphasizing crosscutting values like defending freedom as well as more conservative values like preserving the purity of nature or protecting the planet as an act of patriotism.

  * Even when we try to convey nuance, sometimes the message gets lost in translation. Recently some colleagues and I published an article titled “The Mixed Effects of Online Diversity Training.” I thought we were making it abundantly clear that our research revealed how complicated diversity training is, but soon various commentators were heralding it as evidence supporting the value of diversity training—and a similar number were holding it up as evidence that diversity training is a waste of time. Confirmation bias and desirability bias are alive and well.

  * Some experiments show that when people embrace paradoxes and contradictions—rather than avoid them—they generate more creative ideas and solutions. But other experiments show that when people embrace paradoxes and contradictions, they’re more likely to persist with wrong beliefs and failing actions. Let that paradox marinate for a while.

  * It turns out that younger Anglo Americans are more likely than their older or Asian American counterparts to reject mixed emotions, like feeling happy and sad at the same time. The difference seems to lie in comfort accepting dualities and paradoxes. I think it might help if we had richer language to capture ambivalent emotions. For example, Japanese gives us koi no yokan, the feeling that it wasn’t love at first sight but we could grow to love the person over time. The Inuit have iktsuarpok, the mix of anticipation and anxiety when we’re awaiting the arrival of a guest at our house. Georgians have shemomedjamo, the feeling of being completely full but eating anyway because the meal is so good. My favorite emotion word is German: kummerspeck, the extra weight we gain from emotional overeating when we’re sad. The literal translation of that one: “grief bacon.” I can see that coming in handy in charged conversations: I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m just working through some grief bacon right now.

  * There’s evidence that middle schoolers score higher on math and science competency tests when teachers dedicate more time to lecturing than active learning. It remains to be seen whether lectures are more effective with younger students or whether the gap is driven by the ineffective implementation of active-learning methods.

  * Nozick predicted that most of us would ditch the machine because we value doing and being—not just experiencing—and because we wouldn’t want to limit our experiences to what humans could imagine and simulate. Later philosophers argued that if we did reject the machine, it might not be for those reasons but due to status quo bias: we would have to walk away from reality as we know it. To investigate that possibility, they changed the premise and ran an experiment. Imagine that you wake up one day to learn that your whole life has been an experience machine that you chose years earlier, and you now get to choose whether to unplug or plug back in. In that scenario, 46 percent of people said they wanted to plug back in. If they were told that unplugging would take them back to “real life” as a multimillionaire artist based in Monaco, 50 percent of people still wanted to plug back in. It seems that many people would rather not abandon a familiar virtual reality for an unfamiliar actual reality—or maybe some have a distaste for art, wealth, and sovereign principalities.

  * Sharing our imperfections can be risky if we haven’t yet established our competence. In studies of lawyers and teachers searching for jobs, expressing themselves authentically increased the odds of getting job offers if they were rated in the 90th percentile or above in competence, but backfired if they were less competent. Lawyers at or below the 50th percentile in competence—and teachers at or below the 25th—actually did worse when they were candid. Experiments show that people who haven’t yet proven their competence are respected less if t
hey admit their weaknesses. They aren’t just incompetent; they seem insecure, too.

  * I have another objection to this question: it encourages kids to make work the main event of their identities. When you’re asked what you want to be, the only socially acceptable response is a job. Adults are waiting for kids to wax poetic about becoming something grand like an astronaut, heroic like a firefighter, or inspired like a filmmaker. There’s no room to say you just want job security, let alone that you hope to be a good father or a great mother—or a caring and curious person. Although I study work for a living, I don’t think it should define us.

  * There’s evidence that graduates of universities in England and Wales were more likely to change career paths than those who studied in Scotland. It isn’t a culture effect—it’s a timing effect. In England and Wales, students had to start specializing in high school, which limited their options for exploring alternatives throughout college. In Scotland, students weren’t allowed to specialize until their third year of college, which gave them more opportunities to rethink their plans and develop new interests. They ended up being more likely to major in subjects that weren’t covered in high school—and more likely to find a match.

  * I originally recommended career checkups for students to avoid tunnel vision, but I’ve learned that they can also be useful for students at the opposite end of the rethinking spectrum: overthinkers. They often report back that when they’re dissatisfied at work, knowing a reminder will pop up twice a year helps them resist the temptation to think about quitting every day.