Rendered in bite-sized portions with ample servings of statistics and case studies, readers should have no trouble digesting...
Change is hard. Or is it? A keen observer of the human condition explains how tweaking our personal narratives can have a huge effect on our lives.
"I'm such an idiot!" Who hasn't admonished themselves in similar fashion at some point in their lives? The problem, according to Wilson (Social Psychology, 2009, etc.), is that such seemingly innocuous interior narratives can have a profound effect on the way we view ourselves in society. Like the college freshman who muffs her first math test and immediately concludes she’s just not cut out for higher education; the little leaguer who strikes out his first time at bat and thereafter confines himself to the dugout. The way we internalize our experiences matters. The good news, writes the author, is that the same toxic narratives that produce drop-outs and bench warmers can just as easily be replaced with positive narratives that promote valedictorians and all-stars. Individually, that means happier, more fulfilling lives. Nationally, it could mean reduced crime, fewer unwanted pregnancies and the end of racism. Wilson looks at how well-meaning people have tried to combat societal ills in the past and concludes that they have been ineffective because they have failed to recognize the importance of core narratives. The same goes for a host of other sociological interventions that on the surface appear sound, but ultimately fail to stand up to scientific scrutiny. That’s the second part of Wilson's premise. He's keenly interested in understanding why a certain approach succeeds of feels, and the result is an important examination of the ways we try to ameliorate societal ills.
Rendered in bite-sized portions with ample servings of statistics and case studies, readers should have no trouble digesting any of it—no matter how faulty their own personal narrative about "science books" may be.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-05188-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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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IN THE NEWS
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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