Valuable as encouragement for caregivers to empathize with the turbulent years, but remains uneven and not far-reaching...
Health scientist administrator White and Swartzwelder (Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience/Duke Univ.; co-author, Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy, 1998) propose that behavioral changes in teenagers are not only hormonal, but due to significant changes in brain wiring and that risk-taking acts during the teen years are essential for achieving independence as well as mastering practical, social and emotional adult skills.
The authors consider common problems and some of their effects, organized by broad subjects (Teens and Their Brains, Mental Health, Food, Sleep, Driving, The Digital World, Sex and Sexuality, etc.) and further subdivided by issues such as eating disorders, the effects of caffeine and sugar, stress, pornography and others. The book is not intended as a comprehensive guide; some topics, such as social media and texting, presume access and a certain degree of affluence. In addition, the effects of particular cultures/religions as tempering moral agents that influence behavior do not come into play, resulting in a tendency for teens to emerge as subjects at the mercy of biology, though the authors are careful to note that multiple experiences and outcomes are possible. When explicating brain anatomy, the authors shine, presenting information with readable examples. When offering opinions or suggestions, however, the results are occasionally tepid or expected—e.g., considering violence and the harm that results from becoming desensitized toward it, the authors conclude with the easy summation: “It’s healthy to be appalled by violence. If playing violent video games makes kids less appalled by violence, this would be a bad thing for society as a whole.” On bullying: "Bullies and those they bully also experience other problems, not only in the present, but in the future as well.”
Valuable as encouragement for caregivers to empathize with the turbulent years, but remains uneven and not far-reaching enough as an amalgam of science and parenting advice.Pub Date: April 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0393065800
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
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
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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