You Are Not So Smart

by David McRaney

  Gawande, A. (1999, February 8). The cancer-cluster myth. New Yorker, p. 34.

  Griffiths, T., & Tenenbaum, J. (2006, September). Statistics and the Bayesian mind. Significance, 3(3), 130–133.

  Kurtus, R. (2006 November 24). Similarities between the assassinations of Kennedy and Lincoln. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.school-for-champions.com/history/lincolnjfk.htm.

  Novella, S. (2009, December 21). Autism prevalence. Neurologica Blog. Retrieved December 2010 from http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1374.

  Robertson, M. (1898). Futility: Or the wreck of the Titan. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.daggy.name/cop/effluvia/twott-t.htm.

  Shermer, M. (1998, January). The truth is out there and Ray Hyman wants to find it: An interview with a co-founder of Modern Skepticism. Skeptic Magazine. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.theeway.com/skepticc/archives03.html.

  Procrastination

  Ariely, D., & Wertenbroch, K. (2002, May). Procrastination, deadlines, and performance: Self-control by precommitment. Psychological Science 13(3), 219–224.

  Bloch, M., Cox, A., McGinty, J. C., & Quealy, K. (2010, January 8). A peek into Netflix queues. New York Times.

  Milkman, K. L., Rogers, T., & Bazerman, M. H. (2010, March). I’ll have the ice cream soon and the vegetables later: A study of online grocery purchases and order lead time. Marketing Letters 21(1), 17–35.

  Milkman, K. L., Rogers, T., & Bazerman, M. H. (2009, June). Highbrow films gather dust: Time-inconsistent preferences and online DVD rentals. Management Science 55(6), 1047–1059.

  Read, D., Loewenstein, G., & Kalyanaraman, S. (1999, December). Mixing virtue and vice: Combining the immediacy effect and the diversification heuristic. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 12(4), 257.

  Normalcy Bias

  Azevedo, T. M., Volchan, E., Imbiriba, L. A., Rodrigues, E. C., Oliveira, J. M., Oliveira, L. F., Lutterbach, L. G., & Vargas, C. D. (2005, May). A freezing-like posture to pictures of mutilation. Psychophysiology 42(3), 255–260.

  Barthelmess, S. (1988, March/April). Coming to grips with panic. Flight Safety Foundation: Cabin Crew Safety 23(2), 1–4.

  Klingsch, W. (2010). Pedestrian and evacuation dynamics 2008. Springer.

  Leach, J. (2004, June). Why people “freeze” in an emergency: Temporal and cognitive constraints on survival responses. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 75(6), 539–542.

  Leach, J. (2005). Cognitive paralysis in an emergency: The role of the supervisory attentional system. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 76(2), 134–136.

  Mikami, S., & Ikeda, K. (1985). Human response to disasters. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 107–132.

  Ripley, A. (2005, April 25). How to get out alive. Time. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1053663-6,00.html.

  Ripley, A. (2009). The unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes—and why? New York: Three Rivers Press.

  Schmidt, C. (Producer). (2006, October 17). The deadliest plane crash. (Nova). Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation.

  Svenvold, M. (2006). Big weather: Chasing tornadoes in the heart of America. New York: Macmillan.

  Introspection

  Haigh, E. A. P., & Fresco, D. M. (n.d.). Relationship of depressive rumination and distraction to subsequent depressive symptoms following successful antidepressant medication therapy for depression. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.personal.kent.edu/~dfresco/Fresco_Papers/AABT_05_Rum_Haigh.pdf.

  Wilson T. D., Dunn D. S., Kraft D., & Lisle D. J. (1989). Introspection, attitude change, and attitude-behavior consistency: The disruptive effects of explaining why we feel the way we do. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 22, 287–343.

  Wilson, T. D., & Schooler, J. W. (1991, February). Thinking too much: Introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60, 181–192.

  The Availability Heuristic

  Glassner, B. (1999). The Culture of Fear. New York: Basic Books. Stephens, R. D. (Executive Director). (2010, July 14). The National School Safety Center’s Report on School Associated Violent Deaths. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.schoolsafety.us/media-resources/school-associated-violent-deaths.

  Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973). Availability: a heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology 5, 207–232.

  The Bystander Effect

  Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973). From Jerusalem to Jericho: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 27(1), 100–108.

  Darley, J. M. & Latane, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8, 377–383.

  Gansberg, M. (1964, March 27). Thirty-eight who saw murder didn’t call the police. New York Times.

  Latane, B., & Darley, J. (1969). Bystander “Apathy.” American Scientist 57, 244–268.

  Manning, R., Levine, M., & Collins, A. (2007, September). The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: the parable of the 38 witnesses. American Psychologist 62(6), 555–562.

  Shotland, R. L., & Straw M. K. (1976) Bystander response to an assault: When a man attacks a woman. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35, 990–999.

  The Dunning-Kruger Effect

  Burson, K. A., Larrick, R. P., & Klayman J. (2006, January). Skilled or unskilled, but still unaware of it: how perceptions of difficulty drive miscalibration in relative comparisons. Journal of Personality and Social Psycholog, 90(1), 60–77.

  Kruger, J., & David D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77(6), 1121–1134.

  Apophenia

  Littlewood, J. E., & Bollobás, B. (1986). Littlewood’s Miscellany. New York: Cambridge University Press.

  Brand Loyalty

  McClure, S. M., Li, J., Tomlin, D., Cypert, K. S., Montague, L. M., & Montague, P. R. (2004, October 14). Neural correlates of behavioral preference for culturally familiar drinks. Neuron 44(2), 379–387.

  The Argument from Authority

  Acharya, H. J. (2004, March). The rise and fall of the frontal lobotomy. Proceedings of the 13h Annual History of Medicine Days, 32–41.

  Goodman, B., & Maggio, J. (Producers). (2008). The Lobotomist (American Experience). Brooklyn, NY: Ark Media. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/lobotomist/.

  The Just-World Fallacy

  Andre, C., & Velasquez, M. (1990, Spring). The just world theory. Issues in Ethics 3(2). Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n2/justworld.html.

  BBC News. (2010, February 15). Women say some rape victims should take blame—survey. Retrieved December 2010 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8515592.stm.

  Campbell, R., & Raja, S. (1999). Secondary victimization of rape victims: insights from mental health professionals who treat survivors of violence. Violence and Victims 14(3), 261–75.

  Hafer, C. L., & Bègue L. (2005). Experimental research on just-world theory: problems, developments, and future challenges. Psychological Bulletin 131(1), 128–167.

  Haidt, J. (2010, October 16). What the tea partiers really want. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 2010 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703673604575550243700895762.html.

  Janoff-Bulman R., Timko, C., & Carli, L. L. (1985, March). Cognitive biases in blaming the victim. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 21(2), 161–177.

  Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum Press.

  Miller, F. D., Smith, E. R., Ferree, M. M., & Taylor, S. E. (1976, December). Predicting perceptions of victimization. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 6(4), 352–359.

  Neal, J. (1998, Spring). Belief in a just w
orld for the self as it relates to depression, stress, and psychological well-being. Living in a Social World: Psy 324: Advanced Social Psychology. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.units.muohio.edu/psybersite/justworld/selfmh.shtml.

  Springer Science+Business Media (2010, November 11). Swedish teens say individual traits are the main reasons for bullying. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www

  .sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101111101404.htm. Thornberg, R., & Knutsen, M. A. (2010). Teenagers’ explanations of bullying. Child and Youth Care Forum. DOI 10.1007/s10566-010 -9129-z.

  The Public Goods Game

  Ariely, D. (2008). Predictably irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. New York: Harper.

  Davis, D. D., & Holt, C. A. (1992). Experimental economics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

  Hardin, G. (1998, May 1). Extensions of “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 280(5364), 682–683.

  The Ultimatum Game

  Crockett, M. J., Clark, L., Tabibnia, G., Lieberman, M. D., & Robbins, T. W. (2008, June). Serotonin modulates behavioral reactions to unfairness. Science 320(5884), 1739.

  Güth, W., Schmittberger, R., & Schwarze, B. (1982, December). An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 3(4), 367–388.

  Forsythe R., Horowitz, J., Savin, N. E., & Sefton, M. (1994). Fairness in simple bargaining experiments. Games and Economic Behavior 6, 347–369.

  McMillan, S. (2007, November 19). Monkeys have sense of fairness. Emory Wheel. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.emorywheel.com/detail.php?n=24747.

  Cult Indoctrination

  Myers, D. G. (2005). Social psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.

  Groupthink

  Fox News (2004) “Group Think” led to WMD assessment. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125123,00.html.

  Janis, I. L. (1972) Victims of groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

  Meyers, D. G. (2005) Social psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.

  Weiten, W. (2002) Psychology: Themes and Variations. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

  Supernormal Releasers

  Associated Press. (2006). Food servings are bigger than 20 years ago, but most unaware, study says. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16076842/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/.

  Buss, D. M. (1994). The evolution of desire: strategies of human mating. New York: BasicBooks.

  Johnson, K. L., & Tassinary, L. G. (2005, November 1). Perceiving sex directly and indirectly: Meaning in motion and morphology. Psychological Science 16(11), 890–897.

  Singh, D. (2002, December). Female mate value at a glance: relationship of waist-to-hip ratio to health, fecundity and attractiveness. Neuroendocrinology Letters 23(Suppl 4), 81–91.

  The Affect Heuristic

  Abumrad, J., & Krulwich, R. (2008). Choice. Radiolab Podcast 5(1). Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.radiolab.org/2008/nov/17/.

  Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1997, February). Deciding advantageously before knowing advantageous strategy. Science 275(5304), 1293–1295.

  Denes-Raj, V., & Epstein, S. (1994). Conflict between intuitive and rational processing: When people behave against their better judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 66(5), 819–829.

  Funicane, M. L., Alhakami, A., Slovic, P., & Johnson, S. M. (2000, January/March). The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 13(1), 1–17.

  Timarr. (2010, May 26). Risk, Stone Age economics and the affect heuristic. The Psy-Fi Blog. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.psyfitec.com/2010/05/risk-stone-age-economics-and-affect.html.

  Wallis, J. D. (2006). Evaluating apples and oranges. Nature Neuroscience 9, 596–598.

  Weinschenk, S. (2009). Neuro web design: What makes them click? Berkeley, CA: New Riders.

  Winkielman, P., Zajonc, R. B., & Schwarz, N. (1997). Subliminal affective priming attributional interventions. Cognition and Emotion 11(4), 433–465.

  Dunbar’s Number

  Dunbar, R. I. M. (1992, June). Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates. Journal of Human Evolution 22(6), 469–493.

  Dunbar, R. (1998). Grooming, gossip, and the evolution of language. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

  Gladwell, M. (2000). The tipping point—how little things can make a big difference. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

  Selling Out

  Heath, J., & Potter, A. (2005). The rebel sell: Why the culture can’t be jammed. Chichester, Quebec, CA: Capstone.

  Self-Serving Bias

  Hoorens, V. (1993). Self-enhancement and superiority biases in social comparison. European Review of Social Psychology 4(1), 113–139.

  Kruger, J. (1999, August). Lake Wobegon be gone! The “below-average effect” and the egocentric nature of comparative ability judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77(2), 221–232.

  Meyers, D. G. (2005). Social Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill. Wilson, A. E., & Ross, M. (2001, April). From chump to champ: people’s appraisals of their earlier and present selves. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80(4), 572–584.

  The Spotlight Effect

  Gilovich, T., Kruger, J., & Medvec, V. H. (2002). The spotlight effect revisited: Overestimating the manifest variability of our actions and appearance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 38(1), 93–99.

  Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions and appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 211–222.

  The Third Person Effect

  Bryant P., Salwen, M. B., & Dupagne M. (2000). The third-person effect: A meta-analysis of the perceptual hypothesis. Mass Communication and Society 3(1), 57–85.

  Johansson, B. (2005). The third-person effect. Only a media perception? Nordicom Review 26(1), 81–94.

  Perloff, R. M. (1993). Third-person effect research 1983–1992: A review and synthesis. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 5(2), 167–184.

  Catharsis

  Baumeister, R. F., Bushman, B. J., & Feenstra, J. S. (2008). Social psychology and human nature. Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education.

  Berkowitz, L. (1977). Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 10. New York: Academic Press.

  Bushman, B. J. (2002, June). Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28(6), 724–731.

  Bushman, B. J., Stack, A. D., & Baumeister, R. F. (1999). Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive influence: Self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76(3), 367–376.

  Carey, B. (2009, February 3). The muddled track of all those tears. New York Times, p. D1.

  Landers, R. N. (2010, May 19). Playing violent video games for a release that never comes. Thoughts of a Neo-Academic. Retrieved December 2010 from http://neoacademic.com/2010/05/19/playing-violent-video-games-for-a-release-that-never-comes/.

  The Misinformation Effect

  Bartlett, Sir F. C. (1967). Remembering: a study in experimental and social psychology. London: Cambridge University Press.

  Berkowitz, S. R., Laney, C., Morris, E. K., Garry, M., & Loftus, E. F. (2008). Pluto behaving badly: False beliefs and their consequences. American Journal of Psychology 121(4), 643–660.

  Bernstein, D. M., Laney, C., Morris, E. K., & Loftus, E. F. (2005). False memories about food can lead to food avoidance. Social Cognition 23(1), 11–34.

  Heaps, C. H., & Nash, M. (2001). Comparing recollective experience in true and false autobiographical memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 27(4), 920–930.

  Loftus, E. F. (2003, November). Make-believe memories. American Psychologist 58(11), 867–873.

&nbs
p; Loftus, E. F. (2001, September). The advertisers are coming for your childhood. Independent. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/elizabeth-loftus—the-advertisers-are-coming-for-your-childhood-668019 .html.

  Loftus, E. F., & Ketcham, K. (1996). The myth of repressed memory: False memories and allegations of sexual abuse. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.

  Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 13, 585–589.

  Roediger, H. L. III, Meade, M. L., & Bergman, E. T. (2001). Social contagion of memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 8(2), 365–371.

  Saletan, W. (2010, June 4). The Memory Doctor: The future of false memories. Slate. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.slate.com/id/2256089/.

  Conformity

  Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs 70(416).

  Latane, B., & Darley, J. (1969). Bystander “apathy.” American Scientist 57, 244–268.

  Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67, 371–378.

  Wolfson, A. (2005, October 9). A hoax most cruel. Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY).

  You are a conformist (that is, you are human). Recognize that conformity is inevitable and avoid its pitfalls. (2010, December 5). Psychology Today. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201012/you-are-conformist-is-you-are-human.

  Extinction Burst

  Behavior: Skinner’s Utopia: Panacea, or Path to Hell? (1971, September 20). Time. Retrieved December 2010 from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909994,00.html.

  Social Loafing

  Ingham, A.G., Levinger, G., Graves, J., & Peckham, V. (1974). The Ringelmann Effect: Studies of group size and group performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 10, 371–384.