A delightful memoir that offers a challenge to behavioral psychologists and inspiration for pet lovers.
The remarkable story of how a border collie achieved a mastery of human language on a par with chimpanzees and dolphins.
In 2004, Pilley (Emeritus, Psychology/Wofford Univ.) was bored with retirement and welcomed the challenge of beginning a new research project. When his wife brought a puppy home, the author wondered to what extent he could teach her the meanings of words. With plenty of time now that he was retired, he spent hours playing with Chaser. As they arose, Pilley used every opportunity to verbalize so that Chaser would associate her own actions with words—e.g., saying the word “out” as he gently removed a toy from her mouth during a game of fetch and then praising her enthusiastically when she dropped the toy after hearing the word again. Over time, Chaser accumulated a wide variety of toys, each of which was given a name. Ultimately, she learned to identify more than 1,000 and fetch them from a box containing other toys or search for them when they were hidden. Further, Chaser began to understand when her owner pointed to a new toy and said its name. She was also able to infer that an unfamiliar name referred to a new toy and, when it was the only unfamiliar item in the box, identify a new toy by a name she had never heard before. Opposing the conventional belief held by dog trainers and behavioral psychologists, Pilley is convinced that dogs are not merely conditioned to respond to rewards or avoid punishment, but “can feel and express emotions and can reason.” A few years ago, the author’s research was featured in academic journals, picked up by the press and featured on TV. These days, he and Chaser are working on complex sentences.
A delightful memoir that offers a challenge to behavioral psychologists and inspiration for pet lovers.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-544-10257-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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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