Science and psychology inform the engaging memoir of an author on a self-help mission.
Her mother’s unexpected death inspires a Yukon Territory–based adventurer and travel journalist to face her fears.
In a harmonious blend of memoir and science reporting, Outside correspondent Holland describes her attempts to “learn to master my fear,” embarking on a three-year project of research and treatment following the devastating death of her mother. Her mother had been an orphan, shaken by the death of her own mother, which left the author anticipating her mother’s death more fearfully than anything else. When Holland’s fears were realized, she fell apart, unable to work or deal with people and falling into free-floating anxiety and the occasional panic attack. Other fears came to the fore of her consciousness—e.g., a fear of heights from a childhood escalator mishap (though she later learned that her father had suffered from something similar and that such fears might be genetic in origin) and lingering PTSD from a series of car crashes. The book is most compelling at its most personal, as the author makes her story seem both specific and universal: “An irony: fear is an experience that unites us, even as, in the moment, it makes us feel very much alone.” Holland faced her challenges through both exposure therapy and pharmaceutical applications, and she traces the theories of fear and how to treat it, including Freudian therapy, lobotomy, electroshock treatment, and other more modern approaches. Throughout the narrative, the author develops herself as a protagonist whose fears are serious enough to benefit from treatment but whose condition should strike a responsive chord in many readers. Her goal is not to eliminate fear, which serves as a tool for self-preservation, but to put it into perspective. By the end, she writes, “I am much less afraid of fear itself.”
Science and psychology inform the engaging memoir of an author on a self-help mission.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61519-600-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: The Experiment
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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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