Derren Brown

Do you ever make mistakes? Do you ever lose your temper and then immediately regret it? Are you impulsive? Do you make great plans which you fail to act on? Do you ever behave irrationally? Don’t worry, it’s not your fault....

We enter the Magic Lab, where science and magic meets. We explore how the brain is prey to a whole range of cognitive defaults and errors which impair our ability to make choices which are in our best interests....

The cognitive story behind a simple act of aggression. How our brain is essentially stuck in the Stone Age, struggling to deal with the complexity and pressures of modern life....

Looking at how understanding both the strengths and weaknesses of our brain can help us avoid many of the mistakes we make in life....

To err is human...but so is our need to deny we have erred. How 'cognitive dissonance' prevents us from admitting errors and learning from our mistakes - leading to medical disasters, miscarriages of justice, warping love and causing life-long feuds....

Your brain miscalculates odds and underestimates risk, unless you are the owner of a gambling casino of course....

Our brain is a machine for jumping to conclusions. Derren reveals how the Halo Effect, Anchoring and Confirmation Bias distort our ability to judge one another – when interviewing someone for a job for example....

Our brain defaults to thinking in stereotypes which can result in prejudiced words, thoughts and deeds....

Our confidence in our ability to multitask is largely misplaced. Our brain is really only capable of efficiently doing one thing at a time....