You Are Not So Smart

Latest Episodes:

340 - Thinking Sideways - Jennifer Shahade May 25, 2026

Show notes

There are more possible chess moves than atoms in the universe, and chess champion Jennifer Shahade tells us how we can borrow from the best chess players' decision-tree approach to avoid considering every possible option and instead "think sideways" to consider the best choices on the board.

Previous Episodes

How Minds Change

Jennifer Shahade’s Website

Thinking Sideways

Does chess need intelligence?

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney's BlueSky

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339 - Enlightened Disagreement May 11, 2026

Show notes

Northwestern University just launched the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement, a real-world institution devoted to "research-backed approaches to cultivating open-mindedness, identifying one’s own cognitive biases, working collaboratively with others despite disagreement and more."

In this episode, David McRaney details his time as a resident of the Center, teaching students how to ask questions that activate a person's introspection, and then follow up with questions that evoke a person's motivated reasoning, then keep going until the other side articulates things they may have never considered before, and, in so doing, reveal the deeper motivations and values generating disagreement.

You'll learn about this and all the other modules of the Center's pilot program. You'll also learn about a new game they are designing to improve scientific literacy of news consumers and news creators.

Previous Episodes

How Minds Change

The Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement

Brad Zakarin

Eli Finkel

Nour Kteily

Medill School for Journalism

Patti Wolter

The Center for Public Deliberation

The Listen First Coalition

Better Together America

Heather Barnes

Martin Carcasson

Point Taken

The Visual Thinking Lab

Steven Franconeri

Joshua Greene’s Website

Tango

Tango Quiz Game Research

Love Factually Website

Joshua Hudson

Protein Research

NYT Protein Deep Dive

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney's BlueSky

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338 - May Contain Lies - Alex Edmans (rebroadcast) Apr 27, 2026

Show notes

Alex Edmans, a professor of finance at London Business School, tells us how to avoid the Ladder of Misinference by examining how narratives, statistics, and articles can mislead, especially when they align with our preconceived notions and confirm what we believe is true, assume is true, and wish were true.

Alex Edmans

May Contain Lies

What to Test in a Post Trust World

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney’s BlueSky

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337 - Cognitive Surrender - Gideon Nave and Steven D. Shaw Apr 13, 2026

Show notes

How is AI reshaping human reasoning? What is cognitive surrender, and how do we avoid its negative impact? What is system three thinking, and how can we get the most out of it? Artificial intelligence researchers Gideon Nave and Steven D. Shaw have some answers, some questions, and some suggestions.

Previous Episodes

Thinking: Fast, Slow, and Artificial

Gideon Nave's Website

Steven D. Shaw's Website

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney's BlueSky

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336 - The 3.5 Percent Rule - Erica Chenoweth (rebroadcast) Mar 30, 2026

Show notes

If you want to overthrow a dictator, resist an authoritarian regime, or create a movement that can change the national status quo, you don't need half the country, you only need 3.5 percent of the population to join – but there are some caveats, and Erica Chenoweth whose research led to the discovery of the 3.5 Percent Rule, explains them to us in this episode.

Previous Episodes

Erica Chenoweth's Website

Why Civil Resistance Works (the paper)

Why Civil Resistance Works (the book)

The TED Talk

The Q&A

List of Protests by Size

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney's BlueSky

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335 - Align Your Mind - Britt Frank (rebroadcast) Mar 16, 2026

Show notes

Therapist, teacher, speaker, and trauma specialist Britt Frank tells us all about her new book, Align Your Mind, an all-access pass to understanding, befriending, and leading the multiple voices within yourself.
Grounded in the latest research on Parts Work and Internal Family Systems, and offering proven techniques from Frank’s clinical practice and personal challenges, this engaging guide is a user manual to your own mind—and presents a road map for finding peace, confidence, and a deeper understanding of who you truly are.

Patreon

Previous Episodes

Britt Frank’s Practice

Align Your Mind Website

Britt Frank’s Instagram

How Minds Change

Newsletter

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney's Bluesky

YANSS Twitter

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334 - Magical Thinking - Matt Tompkins (rebroadcast) Mar 02, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, the story of Clever Hans, the horse who changed psychology for the better. We also sit down with psychologist and magician Matt Tompkins. Matt is the author of The Spectacle of Illusion, a book about the long history of the manipulation of our own magical thinking and how studying deception can help us better understand perception, memory, belief, and more.

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s BlueSky

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Matt Tompkins

The Spectacle of Illusion

Science of Magic Association

Society for Psychical Research

Skeptical Inquirer Magazine

Houdini's Debunking

Newsletter

Patreon

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YANSS 333 - Selective Perception - Jay Van Bavel Feb 16, 2026

Show notes

How can two people watch the same video yet see two different things? How can two people witness the same event but arrive at two different truths about what they witnessed? How can the same evidence lead people to drastically different realities? In this episode, Dr. Jay Van Bavel at NYU explains.

Kitted Executive Academy

The Power of Us Website

They Saw A Game

Jay Van Bavel’s Twitter

Jay Van Bavel’s Website

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney’s BlueSky

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

Patreon

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332 - Concordance Over Truth Bias (rebroadcast) Feb 02, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, we sit down with three disinformation researchers whose new paper found something surprising about both our resistance and our susceptibility to both true news we wish was fake and fake news we wish was true.

Our guests are three of the scientists exploring a newly named cognitive distortion, one that every human being is prone to exhibiting, one that is so common and so easily provoked that nefarious actors depend on it when distributing disinformation and propaganda.

Samuel Woolley, Katie Joseff, and Michael Schwalbe will share their methods, findings, and takeaways. They will also explain the troublesome nature of something they are calling concordance over truth bias – a distortion that most often appears in those who have the most (undeserved) confidence in their own (not-so-objective) objectivity.
- How Minds Change

- Show Notes

- Newsletter

- David McRaney's BlueSky

- David McRaney’s Twitter

- YANSS Twitter

- Why Do We Share Our Feelings With Others?

- Concordance Over Truth Bias

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331 - Wicked Problems - Martin Carcasson Jan 19, 2026

Show notes

Dr. Martin Carcasson tells us how he, as the Director of the Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State, trains people how to facilitate deliberation and overcome wicked problems so that they can "spark processes that are particularly designed to avoid triggering the worst in human nature and tap into the best."

Kitted Executive Academy

The Center for Public Deliberation

The Listen First Coalition

Better Together America

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney’s BlueSky

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter