An insightful and rewarding glimpse into the emotional pathways of human contrition.
A study of regret based on a series of international group behavioral studies.
Culling responses from an expansive questionnaire, bestselling author Pink analyzes the cumulative benefits of hindsight to inform future decision-making. His surveys encompassed hundreds of personal stories from respondents who were able to absorb the sting of regret and channel it toward better quality of life. The author believes that while optimism is essential to improved well-being, negative emotions like regret bring clarity, meaning, and much-needed alertness. Throughout more than a dozen illuminating chapters, Pink cites examples from decades of research on the psychology behind high-stakes negotiations and the resultant regret that often followed. Dubbing regret the “quintessential upward counterfactual—the ultimate If Only,” the author isolates four core categories: foundation (failure to be responsible in financial, educational, or health matters), boldness (forgone opportunities), moral (the temptation to behave poorly), and connection (unrealized potential relationship). Arguing that the open acknowledgment of regret is key to repurposing it toward the greater good, Pink gives close scrutiny to two research projects that he personally developed and championed: the World Regret Survey and the American Regret Project. The companion website for these initiatives amassed thousands of reflections from 105 countries and across a collage of cultures. Examples include a woman who regrets not climbing into her ill husband’s hospital bed on the night of his death; a Saudi Arabian businesswoman who laments a tendency to downplay her intelligence and inventiveness “to please/not upset others”; and a man who, 60 years later, still mourns not taking a college classmate up on the opportunity to join the 1964 Freedom Summer project. In the final chapters, Pink offers practical guidance on how readers can thrive beyond their mistakes, molding them into learning opportunities, and how to flip the negative connotations inherent with regret into positive experiences: “By making us feel worse today, regret helps us do better tomorrow.”
An insightful and rewarding glimpse into the emotional pathways of human contrition.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1065-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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