meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Science of Success

Making Better Decisions, The Sophomore Jinx, & The Illusion of Objectivity with Dr. Richard Nisbett

The Science of Success

Matt Bodnar

Self-improvement, Social Sciences, Business, Science, Entrepreneurship, Education

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2016

⏱️ 55 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode we discuss the errors people make in their reasoning and how to correct them, we explain a number of statistical principles to help sharpen your thinking and make you a better decision maker, why every $1 spent on a “scared straight” program creates $400 of cost for the criminal justice system, the illusion of objectivity, why you should NOT rely on your intuition and much more with Dr. Richard Nisbett. Dr. Richard Nisbett is a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. He has been awarded the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychology Association, the William James Fellow Award for Distinguished Scientific Achievements, and the Donald T. Campbell Award for Distinguished Research in Social Psychology, among others. He is the author of the recent book Mindware, as well as The Geography of Thought, Think Differently, and Intelligence and How To Get It. The errors people make in their reasoning and how to correct themHow to apply the lessons of statistics to making better decisionsIs your intelligence fixed and unchangeable?How the industrial revolution massively transformed the way people thinkWe discuss the skills, not on an IQ test, that you must have to be able to function effectively in today’s ageWhy job interviews are totally useless and have almost no correlation to job performance How misunderstanding the law of large numbers can lead you to make huge mistakesWhy does the rookie of the year almost always have a worse performance the following year?Understanding regression to the mean and how it creates extremely counterintuitive conclusionsWhy Performance = Skill + Luck Why deterministic thinking can drastically mislead you in finding the root cause of a phenomenaWe explain a number of statistical principles to help sharpen your thinking and make you a better decision makerThe concept of "base rates" and how they can transform how you think about realityWe walk through a number of concrete examples of how misunderstanding statistics can cause people to make terrible decisionsIf you’re like most people, then like most people, you think you’re not like most people (but you are)Why every $1 spent on a “scared straight” program creates $400 of cost in criminal and incarceration costs Why the “head start” program is a massive failure and what we could have done about it How you can use the experimental method to make data driven experiments in your lifeThe illusion of objectivity - Why you should NOT rely on your intuition How we massively distort our perception of reality and why our perceptual apparatus can easily mislead usHow many of the structures we use to understand the world are highly error proneWhy we are amazing at pattern detection but horrible at "covariation detection”Why the traditional rorschach test is bogus and doesn't actually produce any results Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the Science of Success with your host, Matt Bonger.

0:14.5

Welcome to the Science of Success. I'm your host Matt Bodner.

0:16.2

I'm an entrepreneur and investor in Nashville, Tennessee, and I'm obsessed with the mindset of

0:20.6

success and the psychology of performance. I've read hundreds of books

0:23.8

conducted countless hours of research and study and I'm going to take you on a journey

0:28.1

into the human mind and what makes peak performers tick. With a focus on always having our conversations rooted in

0:33.8

psychological research and scientific fact not opinion. In this episode we

0:38.7

discuss the errors people make in their reasoning and how to correct them. We explain a number of statistical principles to help you

0:44.7

sharpen your thinking and make you a better decision maker. We look at why every $1 spent on a

0:50.8

scared straight program creates $400 in additional costs of the criminal justice system.

0:56.2

We talk about the illusion of objectivity and why you should not rely on your intuition and much

1:00.8

more with Dr. Richard Nisbet.

1:03.0

The Science of Success continues to grow with more than 675,000 downloads

1:08.0

listeners in over 100 countries hitting number one new and noteworthy and more.

1:12.0

A lot of our listeners are curious how I organize

1:14.3

and remember all this information. I get tons of emails and comments asking me how to keep track

1:18.6

of all the incredible knowledge I get from reading hundreds of books, interviewing

1:22.0

amazing experts, listening to a ton of

1:24.0

podcast and much more. Because of that, we've created an amazing free resource for you.

1:29.5

You can get it completely free by texting the word smarter, that's SMAR, T-E-R, to the number 4-2-2.

1:36.6

It's a guide we created called How to Organize and Remember Everything.

1:40.6

Listeners are loving it.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Matt Bodnar, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Matt Bodnar and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.