Provocative, entertaining and often wholly unconvincing.
A lively excursion into the new, and still disputed, field of Evolutionary Psychology.
In this introduction, Miller, who died at age 44 of Hodgkin’s Disease before the book’s completion, and Kanazawa ask readers to examine the life choices they’ve made and re-cast them as evolutionary destiny. A female reader out there may remember the time she tried to dye her hair blonde and came out looking like Ronald McDonald, while a male might cast his mind back to the night he got drunk on Jim Beam and swore to go out looking for the bastard who stole his woman away. In fact, think of almost any foolish, or even sensible, thing you’ve ever done, and the authors would explain it as the result of the irresistible force of sexual selection, a cornerstone of the arguments underlying Evolutionary Psychology. Why do women want to be blonde? Because, argue the authors, men prefer to mate with blonde women. Why do men prefer to mate with blonde women? Because hair darkens as it ages, and so blonde hair (pre-Clairol) is a sign of youth, and therefore greater fertility and health. Why do men want to perpetrate violence on sexual rivals? Because men are forever less certain of the paternity of a child than women can be of the maternity, and to care for a child not of your own lineage is to let your genes die with you. While the explanations often feel more like elaborate exercises in logic than true science (after all, blondes are not indigenous to all parts of the world, so cultural forces must come into play somewhere), the authors do maintain a peppy, sly tone throughout the book, making each explanation (to questions such as, “Why is Sexual Harassment so Persistent?” and “Why are diamonds a girl’s best friend?”) interesting, if not entirely persuasive. The tone sometimes shifts toward an exasperated defensiveness, but because this is a relatively new, still hotly contested discipline, perhaps this is to be expected.
Provocative, entertaining and often wholly unconvincing.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-399-53365-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Perigee/Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
