An unnerving but convincing anti-number polemic.
Two professors of marketing and economics launch a well-informed attack on the infallibility of numbers and data.
Popular mathematics books tend to belong to the math-is-fun or how-to-lie-with-statistics genres. Dahlen and Thorbjørnsen, however, offer an ingenious warning that numbers are messing up the world. They are “flirtatious, manipulative, distracting little devils. [They] mislead us and lie. They distort and entice.” The authors deliver a steady stream of anecdotes, studies, and historical events that will unsettle even the most skeptical. Readers who roll their eyes when the authors claim that we perceive odd numbers as masculine and even numbers as feminine must explain why so many professional athletes (mostly men) prefer odd numbers on their jerseys. Even though numbers influence our feelings, identities, and interests, “numbers contain not more information than words but less.” For example, the authors describe an experiment in which subjects read lengthy, information-rich, flattering reviews of a hotel that received an overall rating of 2. Then they read lukewarm reviews of a hotel that was given a high 5 rating. When asked, they preferred the hotel with the higher number, “clearly influenced more by the number than thewritten praise.” To make matters worse, the 21st century has seen an explosion of smartphones, smartwatches, and other logging apps that allow opportunities for self-quantification that Benjamin Franklin could only dream of. Do they work? Studies show that obsessive health monitoring with a Fitbit or Apple Watch improves performance in some users but only slightly. Besides filling the text with suggestions for fending off number mania (“number vaccine advice”), the authors explain that numbers are there to help. That’s why they were invented. However, they are only helpful if we remember that they’re the product of the human mind and therefore almost always subjective, selective, changeable, different in different cultures, swayed by prejudice and emotion, and often simply wrong.
An unnerving but convincing anti-number polemic.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780306830846
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
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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