You Are Not So Smart Quotes
"You are as deluded as the rest of us, but that’s OK, it keeps you sane."
"You think you know how the world works, but you really don’t."
"The truth is, there is a growing body of work coming out of psychology and cognitive science that says you have no clue why you act the way you do."
"You are naturally hindered into thinking in certain ways and not others."
"Your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information that confirmed what you believed."
"Procrastination is fueled by weakness in the face of impulse and a failure to think about thinking."
"You often become abnormally calm and pretend everything is normal in a crisis."
"No matter what you encounter in life, your first analysis of any situation is to see it in the context of what is normal for you."
"To reach level 5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, a tornado’s winds must exceed 200 miles per hour."
"Psychologists refer to it as normalcy bias. First responders call it negative panic."
"When you and others are warned of danger, you don’t evacuate immediately while screaming and flailing your arms."
"Normalcy bias flows into the brain no matter the scale of the problem."
"You release the hand rests as the engines power down. You sense the bustle of four hundred people preparing to leave."
"The tendency to flounder in the face of danger is well understood and expected among tornado chasers and meteorologists."
"The origin of certain emotional states is unavailable to you, and when pressed to explain them, you will just make something up."
"You are far more likely to believe something is commonplace if you can find just one example of it."
"The more people who witness a person in distress, the less likely it is that any one person will help."
"You are generally pretty bad at estimating your competence and the difficulty of complex tasks."
"Coincidences are a routine part of life, even the seemingly miraculous ones."
"You prefer the things you own because you rationalize your past choices to protect your sense of self."
"The status and credentials of an individual greatly influence your perception of that individual’s message."
"When you are unsure of something, you are more likely to accept strange explanations."
"In any argument, anger will tempt you to reframe your opponent’s position."
"What someone says and why they say it should be judged separately."
"The beneficiaries of good fortune often do nothing to earn it, and bad people often get away with their actions without consequences."
"Without some form of regulation, slackers and cheaters will crash economic systems because people don’t want to feel like suckers."
"You decide when to ask for a raise, or make a move in the bar, or get up on stage and sing, based on your perceived status within a group."
"The promise of revenge is one way human beings ensure fairness, and you are precisely tuned to expect it."
"Your perceived status is part of the unconscious equation you work out when accepting, refusing, and making offers with other people."
"You are not so smart, so you are willing to get nothing if it ensures fair treatment in the future and a more secure place on the social ladder."
"You are prone to believing vague statements and predictions are true, especially if they are positive and address you personally."
"You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself."
"At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing."
"You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations."
"You are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved."
"Cults are populated by people just like you."
"You are hardwired to want to hang out with people and associate yourself with groups."
"Your survival has depended on group dynamics for millions of years."
"The desire to reach consensus and avoid confrontation hinders progress."
"Your mind isn’t equipped to deal with group survival around predators and prey."
"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."
"The RealDoll and rich old sugar daddies are both supernormal releasers."
"Men’s brains are telling them small waists and big hips are good."
"You calculate what is risky or rewarding and always choose to maximize gains while minimizing losses."
"You are always trying to become the idealistic version of yourself that you’ve dreamed up in your mind."
"You have an innate desire to belong to a group and to hang out with interesting people."
"When a group of people come together to make a decision, every demon in the psychological bestiary will be summoned."
"Cults aren’t designed. They form as a result of normal human tendencies going awry."
"You are quick to form groups and then feel as if you should defend those groups from the ill wishes of other groups."
"No human institution can efficiently function above 150 members without hierarchies, ranks, roles, and divisions."
"You compete with your peers by one-upping them."
"You attain status by having better taste in movies and music, by owning more authentic furniture and clothing."
"You are a liar by default, and you lie most to yourself."
"You are biologically driven to think highly of yourself in order to avoid stagnation."
"You excuse your failures and see yourself as more successful, more intelligent, and more skilled than you are."
"Venting increases aggressive behavior over time."
"Memory is imperfect, but also constantly changing. Not only do you filter your past through your present, but your memory is easily infected by social contagion."
"The shocking part of these studies is how easily memory gets tainted, how only a few iterations of an idea can rewrite your autobiography."
"It takes little more than an authority figure or social pressure to get you to obey, because conformity is a survival instinct."
"Your memory is permeable, malleable, and evolving. It isn’t fixed and permanent, but more like a dream that pulls in information."
"Even stranger is how as memories change, your confidence in them grows stronger."
"Recognize the control you have over—wait, was it curtains?"
"What could have made so many people follow the commands of a person they had never met and from who they had no proof of his being a police officer?"
"In Asch’s experiments, 75 percent of the subjects caved in on at least one question."
"To truly refuse to conform to the norms of your culture and the laws of the land would be a daunting exercise in futility."
"Any time you quit something cold turkey, your brain will make a last-ditch effort to return you to your habit."
"Once part of a group, you tend to put in less effort because you know your work will be pooled together with others’."
"Your subjective experience is not observable, and you overestimate how much you telegraph your inner thoughts and emotions."
"If you feel like you aren’t in control of your destiny, you will give up and accept whatever situation you are in."
"You translate your physical world into words, and then believe those words."
"Your first perception lingers in your mind, affecting later perceptions and decisions."
"You are aware only of a small amount of the total information your eyes take in, and even less is processed by your conscious mind and remembered."
"You often create conditions for failure ahead of time to protect your ego."
"Just believing a future event will happen can cause it to happen if the event depends on human behavior."
"You are multiple selves, and happiness is based on satisfying all of them."
"Unless you consciously keep tabs on your progress, you assume the way you feel now is the way you have always felt."
"You jump to conclusions based on how representative a person seems to be of a preconceived character type."
"It helps you think faster, to build models of the unknown in a way that allows you to make decisions effortlessly."
"Your mental models aren’t accurate, nor do they usually need to be. They just need to pop right into your mind automatically and without effort."
"The more things you hear about which match your mental models, the more likely they seem."
"Your expectations powerfully influence the final vote in your head over what you believe to be reality."
"You often believe you have control over outcomes that are either random or are too complex to predict."
"Your brain is always looking for patterns and sending little squirts of happy throughout your body when it finds them."
"Other people’s behavior is more the result of the situation than their disposition."
"The mind struggles to make sense of the world."
"Learn to coexist with chaos. Factor it into your plans. Accept that failure is always a possibility."