Messengers

Why are self-confident ignoramuses so often believed? Why are thoughtful experts so often given the cold shoulder? And why do apparently irrelevant details such as a person's height, their relative wealth, or their Facebook photo influence whether or not we trust what they are saying?

These are just some of the questions that behavioural experts Steve Martin and Joseph Marks tackle in their ground-breaking new book Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don't, and Why. Drawing extensively on the very latest research, they identify the powerful forces that result in some becoming society's prevailing Messengers, and others ending up woefully ineffectual or under-represented. They examine the worlds of punditry, business and politics to show why being right carries less weight than looking right. And in the process they demonstrate why in a world of ambiguity, uncertainty and fake news it is now increasingly the Messenger who is the message.