A sharp and informative guide to communication.
A distinguished actor and communication expert shows how to avoid “the snags of misunderstanding” that plague verbal interactions between human beings.
When Alda (Things I Overhead While Talking to Myself, 2007, etc.) first began hosting the PBS series Scientific American Frontiers in 1993, he had no idea how much the job would change his life. In the 20 years that followed, he developed an enduring fascination with “trying to figure out what makes communication work.” As a TV show host who interviewed scientists and engineers, Alda became painfully aware of his own shortcomings as a communicator and how his background as an actor could help him improve. In the first section of the book, he discusses how effective communication requires listening with ears, eyes, and feelings wide open. Drawing from research, interactions with science professionals, and his work as an actor, Alda reveals how individuals who aren’t “naturally good” communicators can learn to become more adept by practicing their overall relating skills. He describes activities like the “mirror exercise,” in which partners observe and mimic each other’s actions and speech. Not only do people learn how to focus on each other, but they also “strengthen cohesion and promote cooperation” in groups. In the second section, Alda, who founded the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, points out the importance of empathy in communication. He discusses, among others, an exercise that forced him to name the feelings he saw others express. Raising awareness of emotion increases empathy levels, which can trigger the release of oxytocin, the feel-good “love hormone.” By adding emotion to communication, using storytelling, avoiding jargon, and eliminating the assumption that others share the same knowledge base, message senders can forge closer bonds with recipients. The book’s major strength comes from Alda’s choice to take an interprofessional approach and avoid offering prescriptive methods to enhance interpersonal understanding. As he writes, communication “is a dance we learn by trusting ourselves to take the leap, not by mechanically following a set of rules.”
A sharp and informative guide to communication.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8914-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
From psychologist McAdams, a strong and engrossing argument for the relationship between storytelling and personal development. The stories people tell about their lives re-create special moments, recognize turning points, or reveal ongoing identity issues. Finding a particular ``grammar'' in these narratives, McAdams contends that they act as ``a natural package for organizing...information'' and illuminate ``the values of an individual life,'' reaching the level of myth. People define themselves in the tone and content of their narratives as well as in the telling, and the themes that emerge most often—especially love and power—appear in a wide variety of contexts. Ultimately, these stories create ``a human narrative of the self'' and, usually toward midlife, give each life a sense of unity and purpose. Pointing out developmental correlates in his scheme—the emergence of narrative tone in the earliest years or of intention-themes in adolescence—McAdams places a powerful emphasis on ``agentic'' and ``communal characters''—awkward terms for those who act, think, and feel vigorously, or for those who are oriented toward love and intimacy. McAdams also alludes to classical mythology for occasional amplification and refers to standard works (Erikson) and famous individuals (Karen Horney, Margaret Mead) to support his ideas and to highlight his theoretical departures. Likening his role as listener to the protagonist in the film sex, lies, and videotape, McAdams has been researching this cluster of ideas for many years and urges others to follow his outline for ``interpersonal dialogue'' and to pursue a similar exploration. Stimulating—but dense and demanding.
Pub Date: March 22, 1993
ISBN: 0-688-10866-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1993
A karate course and a key chain with a Mace backup are not enough to bridge the gap between men's and women's capacity for aggression, according to the author of this intriguing study. Campbell (ed., The Opposite Sex, 1989; Health, Social and Policy Studies/Teesside University) has for years studied and written about women gang members and female delinquents. Further tweaking the idea of the female aggressor, Campbell finds major differences between men and women's aggressiveness—differences based primarily, she believes, on socialization, not on testosterone or other hormonal differences. Women view aggression- -getting angry, attacking verbally or physically—as a loss of control. To them, it is ``expressive,'' often of feelings of anger and frustration restrained until the breaking point. The resulting explosion may manifest itself as verbal or physical violence, frequently followed by feelings of shame and guilt. But for men, Campbell contends, violence is ``instrumental''—a strategy for taking control, learned early on, when, for instance, teachers acknowledge boys' aggression (although not necessarily approving it) while ignoring girls who fight back. Women target their anger most frequently against men ``because it is [men] who impose their will most strongly over women''—but women's anger is more often concealed, denied, or ``redefined'' (meaning that the anger of women who strike back against abuse or a lifetime of frustration is called ``craziness'' rather than ``rage''). Of additional interest here are the chapters on young boys cut off from gender experimentation by being labelled ``sissies'' (``tomboy'' girls are okay at least until puberty), and on PMS as the excuse for ``erratic'' behavior that might be more appropriately expressed as ``I'm angry.'' With the advent of Hillary Rodham Clinton as President manquÇe, some of the ``second-sex'' discussion here seems dated. But, overall, this is a clearly stated volume on why men and women differ in their aggressive behavior: It owes more—at least according to Campbell—to the imperatives of the schoolyard than to DNA.
Pub Date: April 14, 1993
ISBN: 0-465-09217-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1993
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