Tali Sharot is a neuroscientist. She is the author of The Optimism Bias, the director of the Affective Brain Lab at University College London and a Wellcome Trust Fellow. Tali's papers on the neuroscience of optimism, emotional memories and cognitive dissonance have been published in top scientific journals including Nature, Science, Nature Neuroscience and Psychological Science. She has also written for the New York Times, Observer and Time Magazine.

Better facts tend to be counterproductive on hot-button issues like gun control. As Tali Sharot notes in her book The Influential Mind . . . The smarter a person is, the greater his or her ability to rationalize and reinterpret discordant information, and the greater the polarizing boomerang effect is likely to be

Tali Sharot is a neuroscientist. She is the author of The Optimism Bias, the director of the Affective Brain Lab at University College London and a Wellcome Trust Fellow. Tali's papers on the neuroscience of optimism, emotional memories and cognitive dissonance have been published in top scientific journals including Nature, Science, Nature Neuroscience and Psychological Science. She has also written for the New York Times, Observer and Time Magazine.

Better facts tend to be counterproductive on hot-button issues like gun control. As Tali Sharot notes in her book The Influential Mind . . . The smarter a person is, the greater his or her ability to rationalize and reinterpret discordant information, and the greater the polarizing boomerang effect is likely to be