Mind Control
The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives
Enlarge
Price: $26.00 $6.28
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
ISBN13: 9780385525213 Condition: New Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Most of us would agree that there’s a clear—and even obvious—connection between the things we believe and the way we behave. But what if our actions are driven not by our conscious values and beliefs but by hidden motivations we’re not even aware of?
The “hidden brain” is Shankar Vedantam’s shorthand for a host of brain functions, emotional responses, and cognitive processes that happen outside our conscious awareness but have a decisive effect on how we behave. The hidden brain has its finger on the scale when we make all our most complex and important decisions: It decides whom we fall in love with, whether we should convict someone of murder, and which way to run when someone yells “Fire!” It explains why we can become riveted by the story of a single puppy adrift on the ocean but are quickly bored by a story of genocide. The hidden brain can also be deliberately manipulated to convince people to vote against their own interests, or even become suicide terrorists. But the most disturbing thing is that it does all this without our knowing.
Shankar Vedantam, author of The Washington Post’s popular “Department of Human Behavior” column, takes us on a tour of this phenomenon and explores its consequences. Using original reporting that combines the latest scientific research with compulsively readable narratives that take readers from the American campaign trail to terrorist indoctrination camps, from the World Trade Center on 9/11 to, yes, a puppy adrift on the Pacific Ocean, Vedantam illuminates the dark recesses of our minds while making an original argument about how we can compensate for our blind spots—and what happens when we don’t.
Related Products:
Idea Mapping: How to Access Your Hidden Brain Power, Learn Faster, Remember More, and Achieve Success in Business
What You Don't Know You Know: Our Hidden Motives in Life, Business, and Everything Else
The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries about the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science
Overcoming Unintentional Racism in Counseling and Therapy: A Practitioner's Guide to Intentional Intervention (Multicultural Aspects of Counseling And Psychotherapy)
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
Customer Reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 >
interesting but well-padded
There is a consistent thread that runs through The Hidden Brain. It is that there are parts of the human brain that act at a level below awareness and that these 'hidden' parts account for some otherwise puzzling human behavior. It's hard to argue with that, but it's also hard to find anything new in it and our author doesn't push the conceptual envelope very hard trying.
Fortunately, Shankar Vedantam is a first-rate writer and the book has all the pleasant qualities of a magazine article: it's breezy, well-told and not too demanding.
Good Read
Interesting read, gives us an understanding why we open our hearts and wallets to save a lonely dog in a ocean and not do anything when we hear or see human genocides.
Good analysis on the tug of war between the hidden brain and the conscious war.
Cognitive biases well-established phenomenon in psychology
I was surprised that none of the top-rated reviews mentioned the term "cognitive bias." Humans are remarkable for having numerous types of 'shortcuts' in thinking, or biases, which have been well-studied. In short, the author of "The Hidden Brain" isn't making it up. You can read about biases in psychology textbooks or in this author's well-written account. It's a matter of taste.
Valuable insights into the subconscious
I thought this book was brilliant. Every chapter tackles different subjects and studies that try to explain how the subconscious works. I was very happy with the amount of research, especially scientific studies, that were detailed in the book. There are a lot of anecdotal stories as well, which are also necessary to illustrate the points.
I found the book persuasive and interesting. How does our group affect our thinking? How does race come into politics through our subconscious? What motivates terrorists? There are many great questions that the author raises and his research into the subconscious helps answer many of the questions. I highly recommend this book to all readers interested in psychology.
Waste of Good Reading Time!
The book started out just OK. Many of the author's ideas were taken from other much better books I've read (by authors Hallinan, Ripley and Gonzales). I suffered through the author's political views which seemed based on opinion and not science. A huge section was spent on President Obama and Vedantam's political opinions. I was looking for something more revealing. I feel like I wasted my money and more importantly my time.
1 2 3 4 5 >
Most of us would agree that there’s a clear—and even obvious—connection between the things we believe and the way we behave. But what if our actions are driven not by our conscious values and beliefs but by hidden motivations we’re not even aware of?
The “hidden brain” is Shankar Vedantam’s shorthand for a host of brain functions, emotional responses, and cognitive processes that happen outside our conscious awareness but have a decisive effect on how we behave. The hidden brain has its finger on the scale when we make all our most complex and important decisions: It decides whom we fall in love with, whether we should convict someone of murder, and which way to run when someone yells “Fire!” It explains why we can become riveted by the story of a single puppy adrift on the ocean but are quickly bored by a story of genocide. The hidden brain can also be deliberately manipulated to convince people to vote against their own interests, or even become suicide terrorists. But the most disturbing thing is that it does all this without our knowing.
Shankar Vedantam, author of The Washington Post’s popular “Department of Human Behavior” column, takes us on a tour of this phenomenon and explores its consequences. Using original reporting that combines the latest scientific research with compulsively readable narratives that take readers from the American campaign trail to terrorist indoctrination camps, from the World Trade Center on 9/11 to, yes, a puppy adrift on the Pacific Ocean, Vedantam illuminates the dark recesses of our minds while making an original argument about how we can compensate for our blind spots—and what happens when we don’t.
Related Products:
Idea Mapping: How to Access Your Hidden Brain Power, Learn Faster, Remember More, and Achieve Success in Business
What You Don't Know You Know: Our Hidden Motives in Life, Business, and Everything Else
The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries about the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science
Overcoming Unintentional Racism in Counseling and Therapy: A Practitioner's Guide to Intentional Intervention (Multicultural Aspects of Counseling And Psychotherapy)
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
Customer Reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 >
interesting but well-paddedThere is a consistent thread that runs through The Hidden Brain. It is that there are parts of the human brain that act at a level below awareness and that these 'hidden' parts account for some otherwise puzzling human behavior. It's hard to argue with that, but it's also hard to find anything new in it and our author doesn't push the conceptual envelope very hard trying.
Fortunately, Shankar Vedantam is a first-rate writer and the book has all the pleasant qualities of a magazine article: it's breezy, well-told and not too demanding.
Good ReadInteresting read, gives us an understanding why we open our hearts and wallets to save a lonely dog in a ocean and not do anything when we hear or see human genocides.
Good analysis on the tug of war between the hidden brain and the conscious war.
Cognitive biases well-established phenomenon in psychologyI was surprised that none of the top-rated reviews mentioned the term "cognitive bias." Humans are remarkable for having numerous types of 'shortcuts' in thinking, or biases, which have been well-studied. In short, the author of "The Hidden Brain" isn't making it up. You can read about biases in psychology textbooks or in this author's well-written account. It's a matter of taste.
Valuable insights into the subconsciousI thought this book was brilliant. Every chapter tackles different subjects and studies that try to explain how the subconscious works. I was very happy with the amount of research, especially scientific studies, that were detailed in the book. There are a lot of anecdotal stories as well, which are also necessary to illustrate the points.
I found the book persuasive and interesting. How does our group affect our thinking? How does race come into politics through our subconscious? What motivates terrorists? There are many great questions that the author raises and his research into the subconscious helps answer many of the questions. I highly recommend this book to all readers interested in psychology.
Waste of Good Reading Time!The book started out just OK. Many of the author's ideas were taken from other much better books I've read (by authors Hallinan, Ripley and Gonzales). I suffered through the author's political views which seemed based on opinion and not science. A huge section was spent on President Obama and Vedantam's political opinions. I was looking for something more revealing. I feel like I wasted my money and more importantly my time.
1 2 3 4 5 >