by Hans R Arnold ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 8, 2014
Targets dozens of important questions but will frustrate even patient readers.
In his first book, Arnold develops an esoteric explanation for why some people grow up to do terrible things: postnatal depression in their mothers, which Arnold identifies as the cause of narcissistic and psychopathic behavior in children on into adulthood.
Arnold’s hypothesis relies heavily on the belief that most negative behavior—from homicidal rage, to greed, to simple bullying—is a result of narcissistic inclinations within the aggressor. This hypothesis is shared to varying degrees by a large subset of the psychiatric community, but there is little consensus about what causes a person to become a narcissist—a gap Arnold attempts to fill with his book. He believes that children born to mothers suffering from postnatal depression are deprived of the attention they desperately crave in their first years of life. According to Arnold, their depressed mothers ignore them until they act out; in turn, the baby associates negative behavior with motherly attention. As they grow up, their behavior becomes increasingly malignant because their brains have been hardwired from an early age to associate destruction with affection. In order to prove his theory, Arnold looks at various dictators, murderers and psychopaths from throughout history and attempts to explore the relationships they had with their mothers. This work takes up an intriguing, urgent subject but does it without much appreciation for scholarly principles. Ideas are illustrated and purportedly proven with anecdotes, assumptions, conjecture and wild leaps of logic, but rarely with facts, figures or expert opinions. In some cases, the work doesn’t even go into the test cases’ upbringings, thereby ignoring the central hypothesis. Also, a strain of misogyny runs throughout. The theory essentially identifies mothers as the root of all evil and displays a maddeningly shallow understanding of postnatal depression, calling out feminists, career women and prostitutes in unnecessary and curiously vitriolic asides: “Apparently [Anders Behring] Breivik’s mother was a feminist and this could have contributed towards her feelings—or lack of them—towards her son.” Arnold has clearly thought about his ideas plenty, but the way they’re presented here will not convince anyone, especially the experts.
Targets dozens of important questions but will frustrate even patient readers.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1492292548
Page Count: 128
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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BOOK REVIEW
by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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