For serious students of neurobiology as well as readers interested in philosophical questions of mind and body.
What is the brain? If you answered by describing what the brain does, then this well-crafted overview may not be your cup of gray matter.
The devil may not make us do things, but peer pressure, illness, addiction, and the health of our wallets certainly do. Jasanoff, the director of the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering, begins his account by stating that his chief interest lies more in “what the brain is rather than what it does.” Though he allows some operational description along the way, he arrives at a suitably open-ended definition: the brain is “a transit point for myriad influences that work jointly on us and through us.” So, the brain is an organ that perceives and organizes perception, but there is a difference between brain and mind, a distinction between what is innate in the physical being and what comes in from the outside world. The definition is biologically grounded, and in that regard, one of the fascinating branches of the author’s discussion concerns the evidence for the notion that an organ or tissue transplant might “change a person’s mind or personality” beyond the obvious one of having a new lease on life. The text can get a touch dense, for matters such as “body-wide emotional responses” and “ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage” resist easy reduction to pop science. Still, Jasanoff writes with admirable clarity as he argues that the modern tendency of neuroscience to take a “brain-centered view” that overlooks external sources of behavior can lead to epistemological dead ends. For instance, if the mere fact of having a brain explains all the things we do, can we hold anyone accountable for crime—anyone, that is, other than the brain itself? The question opens onto a consideration of the brain of the mass shooter Charles Whitman, who suddenly seems a timely presence considering all the mischief brains get into these days.
For serious students of neurobiology as well as readers interested in philosophical questions of mind and body.Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-465-05268-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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
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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