Stop Being Reasonable

How We Really Change Our Minds

By: Eleanor Gordon-Smith

Narrated by: Brittany Wilkerson

A thought-provoking exploration of how people really change their minds, and how persuasion is possible.

In Stop Being Reasonable, Eleanor Gordon-Smith weaves a narrative that illustrates the limits of human reason.

Here, she tells the stories of people who have radically altered their beliefs - from the woman who had to reckon with her husband's terrible secret to the man who finally left the cult he had been raised in since birth. Gordon-Smith shows how we can change the course of our own lives, and asks: What made someone change course? How should their reversals affect how we think about our own beliefs? And in an increasingly divided world, what do they teach us about how we might change the minds of others?

Inspiring, perceptive, and moving, Stop Being Reasonable explores why resistance to evidence is often rooted in self-preservation and fear, why we feel shame in admitting we are wrong, and why who we believe is often more important than what we believe. This fascinating audiobook will completely change the way you look at the power of persuasion.

©2019 Eleanor Gordon-Smith (P)2019 PublicAffairs

Interesting but no mention of how to change minds

Do not pick this book up if you are looking for How We Really Change Our Minds.
She gives her belief that facts alone do not change minds then tells some stories to support that.
I would give this a 1 for false advertising, however the brief discussion of some of the concepts was worth listening to.

I wish the author was more rational

I'll return and write a thorough review, but for now, suffice it to say I was really disappointed in this book. I was expecting the author to provide some meaning insights into human decision making and show how what is typically called "rational" thinking is not all that is required to make good decisions. Unfortunately, this is not what the author provided. Ironically, it was quite the opposite.

Several times throughout the book, the author declared a position to be a correct one, and then went on to criticize people who didn't agree with her. They OBVIOUSLY weren't thinking rationally. She'd explain how odd it was that these people weren't thinking rationally when it became painfully obvious that she had not examined the biases and flaws in the positions that she took.

She is on the left end of the political spectrum and sprinkles criticism of the right throughout the book. Regardless of your personal political viewpoints (I am far from right leaning myself), she has clearly picked a side and makes cringeworthy remarks that again show extreme bias and lack of good decision making skills. Any rational person understands that there are serious flaws with the two party system and that both sides, left and right, share in having flawed policies and corrupt figure heads. But she apparently felt no need to condem the left. The right are the clear bad guys. Come on! It's only rational, lol.

She was also extremely vague in what the definition of "rational" even was. She'd digress into philisophical, Decartian explainations about how rationality can't be pinned down. While it's interesting to entertain the fact that we can't rationally prove anything other than that we, as scentiant beings, can't prove anything other than our own existence, it does nothing to help us make good decisions. She then admits at the end of the books that she has no great or innovative ideas on how to change people's minds. When the title of your book is "Stop Being Rational. How We Really Change Our Minds," I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a meaningful explaination of what is meant by rationality and some insights into "How We Really Change Our Minds." Neither were forthcoming.

Overall, the book was sophomoric at best. Personally, I think it was a waste of both my time and money. There are much better books on influence and decision making out there that actually have some scientific and intellectual rigor to them. Do yourself a favor and buy one of those.

We get it, you hate Trump. Feelings over facts.

Dopamine book for the cult of academia, feminism, and progressives. If you are not in that cult....This book may be nails on a chalkboard. So many places in this book, where the author, who complains about this issue, actually only researches facts that support her preconceived ideas. For example; the author conducts a "cat calling" experiment, carried out by walking a night club strip of a major city. Zack and Mike, two males that are "guilty" of the egregious offense of cat calling the author. Whether, the author realizes it or not her subconscious (maybe conscious) crush on Zack bleeds through. Mike and Zack agree to be interviewed, She tells them the error of their ways, but in the end exchanges numbers with Zack for scientific followup, of course.... (And the author said cat calling doesn't work?) Zack and the author end up meeting alone, but this time the author is prepared with facts and stats. She really lets Zack have it with the stat, 70 percent of woman do NOT like being cat called. Flip side of that statistic, though never touched on, is that 30 percent of woman do. Maybe, just maybe those woman go to night clubs dressed to the nines. Flawed experiment... The author also spends way too much time, I am not sure if it is the feminist in her or what, but she includes a story about a girl who's mother lost custody of her over accusations of abuse. She sides with a fellow academic, (feminist) who tries SPOILER ALERT without success to clear the mom's name. One HUGE issue here. The author dedicates only three or four sentences to the fact that the mother actually got caught doing exactly what Loftus was attempting to blame the MAN, the father for, creating false accusations of abuse. Loftus wanted desperately to show the girl was manipulated by her father, into having false memories. Munchhausen Syndrome is real, if your feminist beliefs cloud your ability to see what is in front of you, especially with indisputable evidence, no wonder the point of this book is to give equal, if not more weight to feelings, over facts. The author's obsession with Trump is at an unhealthy level. I hope she gets the helps she needs.