A compellingly readable tale of identity formation.
The story of a baby-switching case that involved two children who were part of two different sets of identical twins.
In December 1988, two women gave premature birth to two pairs of identical twin sons at a Bogotá hospital. One woman came from La Paz, a rural municipality several hours outside the capital; the other came from Bogotá itself. Hospital conditions were chaotic. Nurses often put premature babies together on a single table and used easily removed tags to identify the children. When the women and their sons were finally reunited, each had a boy that belonged to the other. Using information gathered from extensive interviews, Segal (Psychology/California State Univ., Fullerton) and Montoya describe the serendipitous events that led to the reunion of the brothers separated at birth and the effects that reunion had on both families. “Accidental brothers” William and Wilbur grew up in La Paz while their blood brothers Jorge and Carlos grew up in Bogotá. Both mothers accepted the accidental brother in each set as family despite obvious differences in skin color, general appearance, and temperament. Where the La Paz brothers had limited access to education and advancement opportunities, the Bogotá brothers were able to attend college and pursue careers. Drawing on twin study research as well as their own experiences with the brothers, the authors reveal the fascinating dynamics that emerged once each set of identical twins was reunited. Though the revelation shocked everyone, despite individual differences in personality and background, the rapport each true brother had with the other after 25 years of separation was undeniable. Yet the ties developed over more than two decades with other members of each respective family were also profound and remained strong even after the reunion. In exploring the impact that random events can have on personality formation and life chances, this study of the role nature and nurture play in upbringing sheds illuminating light on the meaning of family.
A compellingly readable tale of identity formation.Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-10190-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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