“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” — George S. Patton. I bet you live this almost everyday. Imagine you’re in a meeting with a lot of important people. The boss comes in, takes a seat, and starts talking about “strategic market knowledge” this and “leveraging competitive advantages” that. To you, it all [...]
Social Proof
Pluralistic Ignorance
by Shane Parrish on May 11, 2013
The Destructive Influence of Imaginary Peers
by Shane Parrish on April 9, 2013
Tina Rosenberg with a thoughtful op-ed in the NYT on the influence people around us have on our decisions, even, oddly, when they are imaginary. Bad behavior is usually more visible than good. It’s what people talk about, it’s what the news media report on, it’s what experts focus on. Experts are always trying to [...]
Temperament Matters
by Shane Parrish on April 7, 2013
I love this excerpt from Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking on Warren Buffett: Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and one of the wealthiest men in the world, has used exactly the attributes we explored in this chapter – intellectual persistence, prudent thinking, and the ability to see and [...]
The sentiments of crowds
by Shane Parrish on February 1, 2013
A lot of wisdom in this excerpt from Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics: … if there is one thing we know about the sentiments of crowds, it is that they change. Today it is greed. Tomorrow it is fear. But rarely is it doubt. So, when mass sentiment [...]
The 12 cognitive biases that prevent you from being rational
by Shane Parrish on January 12, 2013
i09 produced a great overview of some cognitive biases. First, the difference between cognitive biases and logical fallacies: A logical fallacy is an error in logical argumentation (e.g. ad hominem attacks, slippery slopes, circular arguments, appeal to force, etc.). A cognitive bias, on the other hand, is a genuine deficiency or limitation in our thinking [...]
The Science Behind Persuading People
by Shane Parrish on January 4, 2013
“One of the most crucial skills to improving your career in the new year may be the ability to persuade people to see things your way,” writes Parminder Bahra in the WSJ. favorable outcomes almost double when we identify common ground with the other party in a negotiation. Find similarities between you and your customer—such [...]
“It was not what people did not know that proved their undoing; it was what they thought they knew that wasn’t so.”
by Shane Parrish on December 12, 2012
Were witches losers in a reproductive game? Speaking about the great which hunts, in Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics, Will Bonner writes: But there’s another sense in which the witch trials turn out to be about sex, after all. You could see them as a variation of the [...]
Secrets from the Science of Persuasion
by Shane Parrish on December 3, 2012
A great animation describing the fundamental principles of persuasion based on the research of Dr. Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University. Dr. Cialdini, if you’re not familiar, is the author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion and the co-author of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Business [...]
