Book Titles

…research suggests that when it comes to collecting and analyzing facts about ourselves and our experiences, most of us have the equivalent of an advanced degree in Really Bad Science.

…we derive support for our preferred conclusions by listening to the words that we put in the mouths of people who have already been preselected for their willingness to say what we want to hear.

The brain and the eye may have a contractual relationship in which the brain has agreed to believe what the eye sees, but in return the eye has agreed to look for what the brain wants.

…if we can’t find people who are doing more poorly than we are are, we may go out and create them.

When facts challenge our favored conclusion, we scrutinize them more carefully and subject them to more rigorous analysis.

…research suggests that people are typically unaware of the reasons why they are doing what they are doing.

Ignorance of our psychological immune systems causes us to mispredict the circumstances under which we will blame others, but it also causes us to mispredict the circumstances under which we will blame ourselves.

…the psychological immune system has a more difficult time manufacturing positive and credible views of inactions than of actions.

Because we do not realize that our psychological immune systems can rationalize an excess of courage more easily than an excess of cowardice, we hedge our bets when we should blunder forward.

When experiences make us feel sufficiently unhappy, the psychological immune system cooks facts and shifts blame in order to offer us a more positive view.