A steady stream of insights into the psychology and neurological mechanisms of wise decision-making and the researchers...
A veteran science writer delivers a dense but illuminating combination of philosophical ideas and hard research.
Laboratories study intellect, emotion and ethics, writes Hall (Size Matters: How Height Affects the Health, Happiness, and Success of Boys-and the Men They Become, 2006, etc.), but only recently have scientists turned their attention to wisdom, which may be defined as using all three to make a sensible decision. The author begins by sketching the teachings of history's first great wise men (Socrates, Buddha and Jesus) not forgetting Confucius's admonition that paths to wisdom include reflection (the noblest), imitation (the easiest) and experience (the bitterest). In the pre–CT scan era of the 1970s, a graduate student, Vivian Clayton, published pioneering research. Her first study, aimed at lawyers, attempted to determine if wisdom increases with age. The results were inconclusive; later studies suggested that it's important but not essential. This and her later papers produced a considerable buzz at psychological meetings, but she failed to receive research grants and left academia in 1982. By this time the ball was rolling, aided by swelling scientific fascination with the brain and dazzling high-tech instruments to examine it. It turns out that patterns of knowledge and judgment typical of wisdom appear in adolescence and don't measurably increase over time. Exposure to adversity such as war or personal loss helps, although it's not a good idea to have too much. Those searching for easy tips on achieving wisdom will not find them here, but diligent readers will be rewarded.
A steady stream of insights into the psychology and neurological mechanisms of wise decision-making and the researchers uncovering them.Pub Date: March 23, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-26910-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
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
BOOK REVIEW
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Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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