Our mind deceives us by parking rose-colored glasses on our nose, writes neuroscientist Sharot, but only with the best of intentions.
In this lively, conversational book, the author puts on firm footing what many of us have sensed all along—that we are, by and large, a pretty optimistic bunch. Indeed, “optimism may be so essential to our survival that it is hardwired into our most complex organ, the brain.” So prevalent are these optimistic tendencies that they compose a bias, a steady inclination to overestimate the likelihood of encountering more positive events in the future than negative ones. The optimism bias protects us from being stymied by the inevitable tribulations of everyday life, or to perceive that our options are limited in some manner; it helps us relax, improves our health and motivates us to act. Sharot is a friendly writer—her book brims with anecdotes and scientific studies that attest to optimism’s gentling hand—though no empty smiley face: There is plenty in these pages about how we cope with root canals and chemotherapy, disappointment and dread. Sharot presents this evolutionary scenario: “an ability to imagine the future had to develop side by side with positive biases. The knowledge of death had to emerge at the same time as its irrational denial…It is this coupling—conscious prospection and optimism—that underlies the extraordinary achievements of the human species.” Otherwise, considering the future would be paralyzing. The author circulates through much of the optimism/pessimism map, touching down on the importance of control, relativity and anticipation. What is most stunning, however, are the ways in which optimism not only evokes new behavior in the individual (optimistic heart-attack victim modeling healthy new behavior), but helps deliver the irrationally expected goods (Joe Namath guaranteeing victory in Super Bowl III).
Pub Date: June 21, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-37848-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
If Charles Reich is your bag, then this may be your book. If you want your neuroscience qua science, then head over to where...
A head-spinning guide to supercharged meditation.
If life is like a box of chocolates, to quote the philosopher Forrest Gump, then, to quote Siegel (Clinical Psychiatry/UCLA; Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, 2016, etc.), “consciousness is like a container of water”—undrinkable if a tablespoon of salt is put into an espresso cup but just fine if the container is a bathtub. And why is it like a container of water? That’s never quite explained, except to say that cultivating the mind to maximize awareness makes our experience of things different. That heightened experience can be a deeply positive thing, for, as the author points out, neural integration makes problem solving easier, and “open awareness” boosts the immune system. Siegel delivers a “Wheel of Awareness” to visualize the process, with attention as the spoke, knowing or awareness as the hub, and “knowns” on the rim. But those knowns can be awareness-inhibiting prejudices as well as hard-won knowledge of how the world works. Siegel favors a murky, circular style: “When we open awareness to sensation, such as that of the breath, we become a conduit directing the flow of something into our awareness.” Well, yes, that’s how breath works, but Siegel means something different—“enabling the sensation of the breath at the nostrils to flow into consciousness.” Further along, the author complicates the picture: “And so both focal attention involving consciousness and nonfocal attention without consciousness involve an evaluative process that places meaning and significance on energy patterns and their informational value as they arise moment by moment.” Can there be meaning without consciousness? That’s a question for Heidegger, but suffice it to say that it’s a clear if empty statement relative to the main, which is laden with jargon, neologisms (“plane-dominant sweep”; “SOCK: sensation, observation, conceptualization, and knowing”), and lots of New Age cheerleading.
If Charles Reich is your bag, then this may be your book. If you want your neuroscience qua science, then head over to where Damasio and Dennett are shelved.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-99304-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: TarcherPerigee
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
A psychiatrist with a specialty in international relations provides a timely and insightful investigation into group identity and ethnic violence. As a native Turkish Cypriot, Volkan (Life After Loss, 1993) brings a personal as well as professional understanding to the question of ``why, beyond their individualized motivations, people kill for the sake of protecting and maintaining their large-group identities.'' Although geared toward diplomats and academics, this study is readily accessible to the lay reader. The bulk of it is comprised of analyses of specific ethnic struggles in Europe and the Middle East—between Egyptians and Israelis, Bosnian Serbs and Muslims, Turks and Greeks on Cyprus—as well as of the newly independent or democratized countries of Latvia, Estonia, and Romania. Interspersed throughout these chapters are sections that provide the terminology and theoretical foundations for Volkan's thought-provoking analyses of specific situations. He introduces several useful concepts for understanding the formation of large-group identities and what motivates such groups to exaggerate their ethnocentrism: ethnic tent (Volkan's metaphor to illustrate large-group psychology); we-ness (a shared reservoir of ethnic identifiers that define a group); chosen glory (a historical event that induces feelings of triumph and thus bolsters a group's self-esteem); chosen trauma (the collective memory of a past calamity that remains dormant but may later be reactivated and distort perceptions); time-collapse (in which the feelings and fantasies about a past shared trauma are projected onto the current situation); psychological DNA of a group (as kept alive by literature, art, song, e.g., the Battle of Kosovo is psychological DNA among Serbs). Volkan is an astute observer of both the small detail and the broader canvas of human behavior. An urgent study of what transforms ethnic pride into violence against others.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-374-11449-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1997
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