Why You Are Now Less Dumb

Recently featured on Salon.com and Boing Boing’s Gweek Podcast, David McRaney offers insights into human nature and psychology that you can apply to your everyday life in YOU ARE NOW LESS DUMB: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself (Gotham Books). McRaney uses his signature mix of matter-of-fact humor and wit to answer questions like: “Is a belief more likely to be accurate just because many people share it?” and “Does a sequence of seemingly connected events actually mean anything?” Just check out the book trailer here for a taste of the many delusions we humans have been prey to over time.

You’ll learn how clothes can add to or subtract from your mental abilities, why getting paid to do something you love (as countless graduation speeches might advise you to do) diminishes your enjoyment of it, and how environmental factors have a bigger impact on your emotions than you’d think (which is why meeting a date for coffee, rather than drinks, can lead to greater attraction).

Whether you’re a budding amateur psychologist or trivia fiend, YOU ARE NOW LESS DUMB has plenty of food for thought for anyone who’s ever wondered why we do the strange, irrational things we do. But while you’re certainly not as smart as you’ve been taught to believe, it’s possible, with David McRaney’s book, that YOU ARE NOW LESS DUMB.

CONNECT ONLINE:
www.youarenotsosmart.com
@davidmcraney

ABOUT DAVID MCRANEY
David McRaney is a journalist and a self-described psychology nerd. He is the author of You Are Not So Smart, which grew out of the popular blog YouAreNotSoSmart.com and has written for several publications including The Atlantic and Psychology Today. He is a two-time winner of the William Randolph Hearst Award for his features and opinions writing, and in 2006 he was named one of the top 10 college journalists in the nation. He lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

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