bookshelf

THE VOICES WITHIN

Name: THE VOICES WITHIN
Author: Charles Fernyhough
ISBN: 978-0-465-09680-0

THE HISTORY AND SCIENCE OF HOW WE TALK TO OURSELVES

by Charles Fernyhough ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2016

Of rarefied interest, to be sure, but with much to say about how the brain works at the interface of thought and language.

bookshelf

From Joan of Arc to Brian Wilson, throughout history, people have reported hearing voices in their heads. But where do they come from?

Fernyhough (Psychology/Durham Univ.; Pieces of Light: How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell About Our Pasts, 2013, etc.) examines the phenomenon of “inner voices,” which manifests in two broad components: the more or less ordinary business of talking to oneself and the more fraught existence of voices inside one’s head. “For many reasons,” he writes, “inner speech is the predominant mode in which we communicate with ourselves, just as external speech is our default channel for interacting with others.” The fact that we verbally direct ourselves to act, and that we do so in language rather than some other form of symbol, is of interest in and of itself, the more so because inner speech can interact with the brain in what would seem to be contradictory modes—the brain at rest, in other words, and the brain at work on executive tasks, modes that are more or less binary. “The words in our head can control and direct,” writes the author, “but they can also fashion fantasies and dream of other realities.” These fantasies can be the province of the potentially less healthy voices in our heads, which are another matter entirely. Fernyhough examines the latest science on inner voice/inner speech, some of which has come from his own lab, and he looks at the history of efforts to understand it in psychological and epistemological contexts. The narrative is straightforward and accumulative, though sometimes his best observations are those made almost in passing, as when he notes that private speech “happens more when there is the illusion of the audience”—i.e., when the person talking is sure to find a receptive listener inside the head.

Of rarefied interest, to be sure, but with much to say about how the brain works at the interface of thought and language.

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-465-09680-0

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Basic Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY

- PROFILES
Charles Fernyhough

bookshelf

THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

BUSINESS | PSYCHOLOGY

bookshelf

THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

bookshelf

The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.