The Science of Fear: How the Culture of Fear Manipulates Your Brain

Great book. I've been reading on the field of "propaganda" the past two years, as a hobby. I am interested in how social media is used to spread propaganda messaging. People often "share" commercially produced propaganda items without first "thinking", and they share items that are misquotes, cherry picked, exaggerated, time adjusted, or just not true - in the hopes of influencing their "friends". Much of it is very cleverly designed to create an emotional response within seconds - the message typically sounds "plausible" (as long you ignore the details) - and has a big "Share if you agree!" statement at top or bottom.Unfortunately, most of us are not comfortable pointing out to our friends that what they just shared is not true. As a result, social media has become a friction-less conduit for the spread of propaganda.Propaganda messaging relies on several basic concepts and approaches to effectively persuade others. "Fear" is one of the most powerful methods and it is used frequently to "Scare" us into action or agreement. Daniel Gardner explains how this "culture of fear" is created, maintained and used to manipulate us in to actions or at least to agree with those promoting a cause or goal. He shows numerous real world examples of how activists, business leaders and politicians have used fear to push things that range from not actually true, to great exaggeration of reality. This is successful because (1) people often rely on Kahneman's System 1 "intuitive" thinking versus the rational/data-backed detail thinking of System 2 (also see Kahneman's book Thinking Fast and Slow) and they intuitively arrive at the wrong conclusions, and (2) most people misjudge or evaluate risk incorrectly. The result is that very unlikely scenarios are made to appear quite likely and end up scaring us into action.I've learned from my readings that our media is filled with useless fluff "stories" (not news) and numerous scare mongering "stories" about fictitious projections into the future made by people wishing to influence and manipulate us. This is concept is reiterated by Gardner in Culture of Fear.I highly recommend this book to everyone. Recognizing how everyone has been working overtime to use "fear" to scare us, I've actually seen my own anxiety levels decrease. So much of our media - and "friends" on social media - continue to try to scare us into adopting their own agendas for their own interests. But it is little more than scare mongering. Once you cut through that idea, its easy to begin ignoring it, reduce our anxiety levels and sleep much better at night.If your kids suffer from anxiety consider it might be because the whole world is literally trying to scare them to death, even though we really do live in the best of times, historically. Think about it.

The book might have a few faults but they are outweighed a 100 to 1 by the lesson being taught. The book could be titled "The Science of How Your Mind in Manipulated". Most of the manipulation is intentional. If you let this manipulation control you, then consider yourself a sucker. However even when you know the facts it might be too late. If your gut feeling has already been manipulated, knowing the facts usually doesn't help. The book describes studies of why this happens. Fascinating.Some reviewer claimed that the studies are not backed up by references. There are 20 pages in the back of the book where you can get more information on the studies that are referenced. Is the book hypocritical by describing experiments to prove his point, when often he chastises writers who provide facts and figure to prove their biased point? Maybe a little bit but at least Gardner tells where the facts came from. I would have like to have known in each case how scientific the experiment was. Was it a double blind experiment (the only kind you can put faith into the results)? I thought a few chapters, like the one on terrorism, was too long. I'd prefer he make his point, back it up and then get on with the book. He also seemed to have spent to much trying to show where "the gut" came from.I challenge you to read this book and then recognize when and where all people are trying to mess up your mind such that you won't make a knowledgeable correct choice. Practice using your brain instead of your gut. This book will help. Don't be afraid, be thankful.

Gardner's book is both enjoyable and informative, providing a wealth of information about how humans evaluate risk. In particular, the author shows how our instincts (or "Gut") reactions to risk are often incorrect, yet we are reluctant to overrule these reactions with the more calm and reasoning "Head" side of our thinking.Gardner uses a vast review of research in the field of risk assessment to bolster his points, yet manages to make these scientific studies accessible to laypeople, summarizing many of the principles with names such as the Example Rule, the Anchoring Rule, and the Rule of Typical Things. He then gives a number of examples of how people are often led astray by different entities (e.g., the news media, advertising agencies, political campaigns) who use these principles to evoke unreasoning fear as a means of manipulation, the implicit message being, "Here's something that you should be afraid of, but if you'll just buy this product or elect this candidate, you'll be safe."I especially enjoyed the abundant statistics and discussions about the relative risk or safety of different activities (e.g., car travel vs. airline travel, heart disease vs. cancer, etc.), and how, from a historical and statistical perspective, "there's never been a better time to be alive." I would have liked for Gardner to have covered certain topics in more detail (e.g., vaccinations, climate change), but the ones he did cover in detail (e.g., terrorism, environmental chemicals, the role of the news media) were all well done.All in all, a fascinating and valuable book for anyone who wants to know how to better use the reasoning side of their brain to evaluate the risks we all face.

Excellent book, well written, good reasoning, clear logic that allows you to follow his arguments which are well supported by quoted research.

Written simply and clearly. An abstract subject that has been presented in a very easily and simple way, I love books and authors who simplify the subjects in that way this is a good book

When I first start reading this book it is really interesting but after sometime the book feels really repeat the writing style is bad and over all the information they provide that is is good but the way the information is described is really bad. This is not a book I want to read again nor do I recommend.

But it looks great on my bookshelf

Wonderfully written book. Nice write up on behavioral science before opening the topic.