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Fanboyism and Brand Loyalty
The Misconception: You prefer the things you own over the things you don’t because you made rational choices when we bought them. The Truth: You prefer the things you own because you rationalize your...
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Introspection Illusion
The Misconception: You know why you like the things you like and feel the way you feel. The Truth: The origin of certain emotional states is unavailable to you, and when pressed to explain them, you...
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The Just-World Fallacy
The Misconception: People who are losing at the game of life must have done something to deserve it. The Truth: The beneficiaries of good fortune often do nothing to earn it, and bad people often get...
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Confirmation Bias
The Misconception: Your opinions are the result of years of rational, objective analysis. The Truth: Your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information which confirmed what you...
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The Illusion of Transparency
The Misconception: When your emotions run high, people can look at you and tell what you are thinking and feeling. The Truth: Your subjective experience is not observable, and you overestimate how much...
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Catharsis
The Misconception: Venting your anger is an effective way to reduce stress and prevent lashing out at friends and family. The Truth: Venting increases aggressive behavior over time. Source:...
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The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
The Misconception: You take randomness into account when determining cause and effect. The Truth: You tend to ignore random chance when the results seem meaningful or when you want a random event to...
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Procrastination
The Misconception: You procrastinate because you are lazy and can’t manage your time well. The Truth: Procrastination is fueled by weakness in the face of impulse and a failure to think about thinking....
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Deindividuation
The Misconception: People who riot and loot are scum who were just looking for an excuse to steal and be violent. The Truth: You are are prone to losing your individuality and becoming absorbed into a...
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The Backfire Effect
The Misconception: When your beliefs are challenged with facts, you alter your opinions and incorporate the new information into your thinking. The Truth: When your deepest convictions are challenged...
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Misattribution of Arousal
The Misconception: You always know why you feel the way you feel. The Truth: You can experience emotional states without knowing why, even if you believe you can pinpoint the source. Source:...
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The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight
The Misconception: You celebrate diversity and respect others’ points of view. The Truth: You are driven to create and form groups and then believe others are wrong just because they are others....
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The Benjamin Franklin Effect
The Misconception: You do nice things for the people you like and bad things to the people you hate. The Truth: You grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm. Benjamin...
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The Overjustification Effect
The Misconception: There is nothing better in the world than getting paid to do what you love. The Truth: Getting paid for doing what you already enjoy will sometimes cause your love for the task to...
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Ego Depletion
The Misconception: Willpower is just a metaphor. The Truth: Willpower is a finite resource. Forever Alone by Lysgaard(Source: Lysgaard) In 2005, a team of psychologists made a group of college students...
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YANSS Podcast – Episode One
The Topic: Attention The Guest: Daniel Simons The Episode: iTunes – Download - RSS - Soundcloud The video above demonstrates the Monkey Business Illusion. It’s designed to fool both people who have and...
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Formal Sweatpants Procrastination Comic
Josh Mecouch over at Formal Sweatpants created a new comic based on a YANSS post a while back on procrastination. Thanks, Josh. This is great. That post discussed the concept of future self vs. present...
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YANSS Podcast – Episode Two
The Topic: The Illusion of Knowledge The Guest: Christopher Chabris The Episode: iTunes – Download – Stitcher – RSS - Soundcloud Remember when the United States stock market crashed a few years back?...
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YANSS Podcast – Episode Three
The Topic: Confabulation The Guest: V.S. Ramachandran The Episode: iTunes – Download – Stitcher – RSS - Soundcloud Caden Cotard in Synecdoche, New York. Source: Sony Pictures Classics As a motto for...
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YANSS Podcast – Episode Four
The Topic: The Self The Guest: Bruce Hood The Episode: Download - iTunes - Stitcher - RSS - Soundcloud Russian Dwarf Hamster – Photo by cdrussorusso You are a pile of atoms. When you eat vanilla...
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