Why Smart People Are So Easily Fooled

Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash

When I lived in Moscow, my gym was just a five-minute walk from my flat. So rather than use a locker, I would just run over in my shorts and a jacket no matter what the weather was. The locals thought I was crazy. Elderly Russians would sometimes scream at me to go home and get dressed properly.

I had always heard that Russians were impervious to the effects of weather, but the truth is that they get cold just like the rest of us. We tend to mythologize the unknown. Our brains work in strange ways, soaking up patterns from what we see. Often, however, those experiences are unreliable, such as the Hollywood images that helped shape my views about Russians and their impenetrability.

The problem is that myths often feel more real than facts. We have a tendency to seize on information that is most accessible, not the most accurate, and then interpret new evidence based on that prior perception. We need to accept that we can’t avoid our own cognitive biases. The unavoidable truth is that we’re easiest to fool when we think we’re being clever.

Inventing Myths

When Jessica Pressler first published her story about Anna Sorokin in New York Magazine, it could scarcely be believed. A Russian emigrant, with no assets to speak of, somehow managed to convince the cream of New York society that she was, in…