n nWhy people are not as gullible as we think n nNot Born Yesterday explains how we decide who we can trust and what we should believe--and argues that were pretty good at making these decisions. In this lively and provocative book, Hugo Mercier demonstrates how virtually all attempts at mass persuasion--whether by religious leaders, politicians, or advertisers--fail miserably. Drawing on recent findings from political science and other fields ranging from history to anthropology, Mercier shows that the narrative of widespread gullibility, in which a credulous public is easily misled by demagogues and charlatans, is simply wrong. n nWhy is mass persuasion so difficult? Mercier uses the latest findings from experimental psychology to show how each of us is endowed with sophisticated cognitive mechanisms of open vigilance. Computing a variety of cues, these mechanisms enable us to be on guard against harmful beliefs, while being open enough to change our minds when presented with the right evidence. Even failures--when we accept false confessions, spread wild rumors, or fall for quack medicine--are better explained as bugs in otherwise well-functioning cognitive mechanisms than as symptoms of general gullibility. n nNot Born Yesterday shows how we filter the flow of information that surrounds us, argues that we do it well, and explains how we can do it better still.n