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    The Wisest One in the Room: How You Can Benefit from Social Psychology's Most Powerful Insights
    The Wisest One in the Room: How You Can Benefit from Social Psychology's Most Powerful Insights
    The Wisest One in the Room: How You Can Benefit from Social Psychology's Most Powerful Insights
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Wisest One in the Room: How You Can Benefit from Social Psychology's Most Powerful Insights

    Written by Thomas Gilovich and Lee Ross

    Narrated by Chris Sorensen

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Renowned psychologists describe the most useful insights from social psychology that can help make you "wise": wise about why people behave the way they do, and wise about how to use that knowledge in understanding and influencing the people in your life. When faced with a challenge, we often turn to those we trust for words of wisdom. Friends, relatives, and colleagues: someone with the best advice about how to boost sales, the most useful insights into raising children, or the sharpest take on an ongoing conflict. In The Wisest One in the Room, renowned social psychologists Thomas Gilovich and Lee Ross ask: Why? What do these people know? What are the foundations of their wisdom? And, as professors and researchers who specialize in the study of human behavior, they wonder: What general principles of human psychology are they drawing on to reach these conclusions? They begin by noting that wisdom, unlike intelligence, demands some insight into people-their hopes, fears, passions, and drives. It's true for the executive running a Fortune 500 company, the candidate seeking public office, the artist trying to create work that will speak to the ages, or the single parent trying to get a child through the tumultuous adolescent years. To be wise, they maintain, one must be psych-wise. Gilovich and Ross show that to answer any kind of behavioral question, it is essential to understand the details-especially the hidden and subtle details-of the situational forces acting upon us. Understanding these forces is the key to becoming wiser in the way we understand the people and events we encounter, and wiser in the way we deal with the challenges that are sure to come our way-perhaps even the key to becoming "the wisest in the room."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 22, 2016
    ISBN9781501920066
    Author

    Thomas Gilovich

    Thomas Gilovich is a professor of psychology at Cornell University and author of The Wisest One in the Room (with Lee Ross), How We Know What Isn’t So, Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes, and Social Psychology. He lives in Ithaca, New York.

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    Reviews for The Wisest One in the Room

    3.5/5

    23 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A brilliant work. highly recommended for all people who care about dignity, justice, democracy and human rights
    • 5/5
      Insightful. I will (at least try to) use the wisdom in this book daily.
    • 4/5
      Of the many definitions proposed for wisdom, perhaps the most intriguing is “seeing beyond illusion.” When most people are captivated by illusions, the wisest one in the room sees past them and proposes new solutions. The authors draw on recent research in social psychology, judgement, and decision making to help us become wiser. These insights help us see beyond five classes of compelling illusions that often mislead us. The second part of the book applies these wise perspectives to solving several important real-world problems. These five “pillars of wisdom” are demonstrated with relevant research and clear examples in the first part of the book:1)Illusions of objectivity — Naïve realism is the ubiquitous error of mistaking our perception of the world for an objective assessment of the world. Wise people recognize that their take on reality is only their own perception and not an objective assessment of the world as it actually is. This leads to the false consensus effect—a tendency to project your preferences onto a majority of people. Wise people recognize that bias affects them as much as it does others because most of the mental processes of perception operate automatically without our awareness. Wise people acknowledge their own perspective is no more valid than another’s. 2)The surprising power of subtle situational influence — Organ donation participation rates are close to 100 percent in countries that require people to opt-out and only about 15 percent in opt-in countries. Wise people know it is important to make the path from good intentions to effective action clear and simple. Nudges in the form of helpful options, honesty reminders, and removing obstacles on: retirement plans, saving money, recycling waste, tax filing, healthy eating, and lab experiments greatly influence the participation rates. Wise people understand the power of getting the ball rolling in the right direction. When we ignore situational influences we commit the fundamental attribution error and confuse situational influences with personal motivation, values, and character. To avoid confusing the person with the role, wise people withhold judgment until the situation is known. 3)The label frames the issue— “The names we give to plans, policies, and proposals determine what associations and images come to mind when we think about them.” In early 2000 the board of Ursinus College put this to the test by raising tuition nearly 20 percent. Applications soared, largely because prospective applicants see tuition costs as a proxy for the prestige of the school. Context, motivation, and timeliness influence the meaning we attach to various ambiguous stimuli. Understanding negativity dominance can help us evaluate alternatives framed as loses by considering the corresponding gains; understanding denominator neglect can help us fairly compare financial alternatives.4)Beliefs follow from actions—“Once people have acted in a way that seems consistent with a particular belief, they are inclined to endorse that belief.” It can cheer us up to whistle while we work or to manage to smile when we might otherwise be feeling glum. The physical actions of social movements, whether for good or evil, nudge people toward adopting the beliefs of those already moving. “I act; therefore I believe.” Wise people follow their own well-chosen beliefs even if they must oppose the crowd. 5)Ideology blinds us to contrary evidence—“The information we can access most readily is often but a small fraction of the information we need, and often a biased sample at that.” Our intuitions automatically access this readily available, but incomplete information, “Many mistakes are made not because the right answer is too hard but because the wrong answer is too easy.” To overcome confirmation bias, wise people deliberately seek out evidence that contradicts their intuition.The second half of the book applies these insights to analyzing and suggesting solutions to four pressing real-world problems. The problems addressed are: 1) What leads to human happiness and well-being? 2) What sustains human conflict? 3) How can at-risk populations be more effectively educated? and 4) What can we do to minimize global warming? These examples demonstrate how overcoming the frailties of ordinary thinking can help us arrive at new solutions to persistent problems. This well-researched and thoughtfully presented book explores several mind traps that trick every one of us. The authors skillfully illustrate and apply relevant research with accessible examples. Although the book is more nearly an exposition of the research interests of the authors than it is an in-depth and comprehensive exploration of wisdom, it does provide clear guidance that can help any of us move forward on the long path toward wisdom.