Practical and informative advice for understanding and deepening attachments.
The challenges and rewards of human connection.
The charming, accessible latest by organizational psychologist Grant (Think Again, 2021) takes a potentially unwieldy topic and breaks it down into manageable segments. Rather than think of human relationships as interchangeable—or break them into the usual categories, such as friend, relative, or co-worker—he suggests we might be better off looking at them under four new groupings: associates, allies, pals, and companions. Associates are “transactional ties,” allies “partnerships based on purpose,” pals “alliances of amusement,” and companions “connections based on care.” While a single person might fall into more than one category or evolve from one to another, Grant makes the point that noticing just what we expect to get out of a relationship makes it easier, both to get into sync and to manage our expectations. “If we can vibe spontaneously with some of the people some of the time, why can’t we do it deliberatively with more of the people more of the time?” he asks. He delves into one-on-one relationships, whether between couples or friends or co-workers, as well as group relationships large and small. Resisting jargon and confining close examination of research studies to the endnotes, the author remains both optimistic and down-to-earth in his approach to a complicated topic. He uses examples from his own experience and that of others, including three seemingly incompatible astronauts who had to learn to co-exist for almost six months on a journey in space and the members of Metallica, who employed a psychologist to keep the band from breaking up. “Double-blind experiments and Venn diagrams are my love language,” he jokes, and he includes plenty of the latter in the book, along with entertaining cartoons. While he maintains that “this is an idea book, not a self-help book,” readers will find many suggestions for building and improving relationships.
Practical and informative advice for understanding and deepening attachments.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9798217059706
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2026
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
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
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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