Wired to Trust

About this episode

Tali Sharot discusses how cognitive biases and optimism can lead individuals to overlook risks in decision-making.

It's easy to think scams only work when someone misses something obvious. In reality, most of them don't look obvious at the start. They show up as normal situations with just enough friction to notice, but not enough to stop. That small gap is where people tend to move forward instead of stepping back. My guest today is Tali Sharot, a cognitive neuroscientist who studies how we form beliefs and make decisions. She's known for her research on the neural basis of human optimism, and her work has been published in leading journals. In her books, The Optimism Bias and The Science of Optimism, she explains why we expect things to work out and how that tendency can quietly expose us to risk. We discuss what's happening in those in-between moments, why a situation can feel slightly off and still seem reasonable enough to continue, and how past experience lowers our guard without us noticing. We also look at that brief internal hesitation people tend to override, and why it's often the most useful signal they have. By the time something clearly crosses the line, the decision has usually already been made. Show Notes: [01:14] Tali explains her background as a cognitive neuroscientist and…

People in this episode

Host: Chris Parker

Guest: Tali Sharot

Topics covered

• scams
• decision making
• cognitive neuroscience
• human behavior
• optimism
• risk

Keywords

• scams
• cognitive neuroscience
• decision making
• optimism
• human behavior
• risk

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Optimism Bias, The Science of Optimism

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