Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant (sad books to read txt) 📕

criticism after they were told “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.” It’s surprisingly easy to hear a hard truth when it comes from someone who believes in your potential and cares about your success.

* Pay isn’t a carrot we need to dangle to motivate people—it’s a symbol of how much we value them. Managers can motivate people by designing meaningful jobs in which people have freedom, mastery, belonging, and impact. They can show appreciation by paying people well.

* In a meta-analysis of persuasion attempts, two-sided messages were more convincing than one-sided messages—as long as people refuted the main point of the other side. If they just presented both sides without taking a stance, they were less persuasive than if they preached only their side.

* When Monica Seles was stabbed on a tennis court in 1993, I know at least one Steffi Graf fan who celebrated. In the 2019 NBA finals, when Kevin Durant went down with an injury, some Toronto Raptors fans started cheering, proving that even Canadians are capable of cruelty. One sports radio host argued, “There is not a single fan in professional sports who isn’t happy when an opposing big-time player gets injured and in theory will make your team’s path to success easier.” With all due respect, if you care more about whether your team wins a game than whether a human being is hurt in real life, you might be a sociopath.

* The stock market impact of soccer losses is the subject of extensive debate: although a number of studies have demonstrated the effect, others have failed to support it. My hunch is that it’s more likely to occur in countries where the sport is most popular, the team is expected to win, the match is high stakes, and the loss is a near miss. Regardless of how sports influence markets, we know they can affect moods. One study of European military officers showed that when their favorite soccer team loses on Sunday, they’re less engaged at work on Monday—and their performance might suffer as a result.

* This isn’t to say that stereotypes never have a basis in reality. Psychologists find that when comparing groups, many stereotypes match up with the average in a group, but that doesn’t mean they’re useful for understanding individual members of the group. Thousands of years ago, when it was rare to interact with different groups, beliefs about the tendencies of different tribes might have helped our ancestors protect their own tribe. Yet today, when intergroup interactions are so common, assumptions about a group no longer have the same utility: it’s much more helpful to learn something about individuals. The same psychologists have shown that our stereotypes become consistently and increasingly inaccurate when we’re in conflict with another group—and when we’re judging the ideologies of groups that are very different from our own. When a stereotype spills over into prejudice, it’s a clue that it might be time to think again.

* Psychologists have actually studied this recently and found that the arbitrary names of zodiac signs can give rise to stereotypes and discrimination. Virgo was translated into Chinese as “virgin,” which calls to mind prejudice against old virgins—spinsters—as critical, germophobic, fussy, and picky.

* It seems that humans have understood the magic of talking ourselves into change for thousands of years. I learned recently that the word abracadabra comes from a Hebrew phrase that means “I create as I speak.”

* The peace talks fell apart when the Ugandan president disregarded Betty’s request to set the ground rules for the peace talks and instead publicly threatened Kony, who retaliated by massacring several hundred people in Atiak. Devastated, Betty left and went to work for the World Bank. A decade later, she initiated another round of peace talks with the rebels. She returned to Uganda as the chief mediator, spending her own money instead of accepting funds from the government so she could work independently. She was on the verge of success when Kony backed out at the last minute. Today, his rebel army has shrunk to a fraction of its original size and is no longer considered a major threat.

* Quaker retreats have “clearness committees” that serve this very purpose, posing questions to help people crystallize their thinking and resolve their dilemmas.

* When media headlines proclaim a divided America on gun laws, they’re missing a lot of complexity. Yes, there’s a gap of 47 to 50 percentage points between Republicans and Democrats on support for banning and buying back assault weapons. Yet polls show bipartisan consensus on required background checks (supported by 83 percent of Republicans and 96 percent of Democrats) and mental health screenings (favored by 81 percent of Republicans and 94 percent of Democrats).

* Climatologists go further, noting that within denial there are at least six different categories: arguing that (1) CO2 is not increasing; (2) even if CO2 is increasing, warming is not happening; (3) even if warming is happening, it’s due to natural causes; (4) even if humans are causing warming, the impact is minimal; (5) even if the human impact is not trivial, it will be beneficial; and (6) before the situation becomes truly dire, we’ll adapt or solve it. Experiments suggest that giving science deniers a public platform can backfire by spreading false