In this episode we sit down with Brian Klaas, author of Fluke, and get into the existential lessons and grander meaning for a life well-lived (once one finally accepts the power and influence of randomness, chaos, and chance). In addition, we learn not to fall prey to proportionality bias - the tendency for human brains to assume big, historical, or massively impactful events must have had big causes and/or complex machinations underlying their grand outcomes. It’s one of the cognitive biases that most contributes to conspiratorial thinking and grand conspiracy theories, one that leads to an assumption that there must be something more going on when big, often unlikely, events make the evening news. Yet, as Brian explains, events big and small are often the result of random inputs in complex systems interacting in ways that are difficult to predict.

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Brian Klaas

Fluke

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney’s BlueSky

YANSS Twitter

YANSS Facebook

Newsletter

Kitted

Patreon

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.

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Erica Chenoweth's Website

Why Civil Resistance Works (the paper)

Why Civil Resistance Works (the book)

The TED Talk

The Q&A

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

David McRaney's BlueSky

YANSS Twitter

YANSS Facebook

Newsletter

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Professor Neil Theise, the author of Notes on Complexity,  provides an introduction to the science of how complex systems behave – from cells to human beings, to ecosystems, the known universe, and beyond – and we explore if Ian Malcolm was right when he told us in Jurassic Park that "Life, um, finds a way."

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Neil Theise's Website

Notes on Complexity

Conway's Game of Life

The Santa Fe Institute

Technosphere

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

Patreon

In this episode we sit down with Greg Satell, a communication expert whose book, Cascades, details how rapid, widespread change can sweep across groups of people big and small, and how understanding the psychological mechanisms at play in such moments can help anyone looking to create change in a family, institution, or even nation, prepare for the inevitable resistance they will face.

• Special Offer From Greg Satell

• Greg Satell's Website

• Greg Satell's Blog

• Greg Satell's Twitter

• Newsletter

• How Minds Change

• David McRaney’s Twitter

• Kitted

• YANSS Twitter

• 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.

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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

In 1974, two psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, as the New Yorker once put it, "changed the way we think about the way we think." The prevailing wisdom, before their landmark research went viral (in the way things went viral in the 1970s), was that human beings were, for the most part, rational optimizers always making the kinds of judgments and decisions that best maximized the potential of the outcomes under their control. This was especially true in economics at the time. The story of how they generated a paradigm shift so powerful that it reached far outside economics and psychology to change the way all of us see ourselves is a fascinating tale, one that required the invention of something this episode is all about: The Psychology of Single Questions.

They Thought We Were Ridiculous

Opinion Science

Behavioral Grooves

How Minds Change

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

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

Prisoners of Silence

Clever Hans

Wilhelm von Osten

Carl Sagan Quote

Science of Magic Association

Society for Psychical Research

Skeptical Inquirer Magazine

Houdini's Debunking

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

- Samuel Wooley

- Katie Joseff

- Michael Schwalbe

- Geoffrey Cohen

This episode’s guest is Mónica Guzmán, the author of I Never Thought of It That Way – a book with very practical advice on how to have productive conversations in a polarized political environment via authentic curiosity about where people’s beliefs, opinions, attitudes, and values come from. It's also about how to learn from those with whom we disagree by establishing the sort of dynamic in which they will eagerly learn from us as well.

- How Minds Change

- Show Notes

- Newsletter

- David McRaney's BlueSky

- David McRaney’s Twitter

- YANSS Twitter

- Mónica Guzmán’s Website

- Mónica Guzmán’s Twitter 

- I Never Thought of it That Way

- Braver Angels

- My Article on Intellectual Humility

Our guest in this episode is Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and writer for the New Yorker Magazine who is also the New York Times Bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better. His new book is Supercommunicators, a practical and approachable guide to what makes great conversations work. In the episode we discuss the science behind what it takes to form a connection with another human being through dialogue, how to generate or nurture a bond, and how to form, repair, and maintain a conversational pipeline through listening and communicating that guarantees reciprocation and understanding.

Charles DuHigg's Website

Charles DuHigg's Twitter

Supercommunicators

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon