Following in the footsteps of Carol Gilligan, a study showing that boys learn to hide their real selves and may suffer from it more than girls do. Schools, parents, and society fail boys by demanding that they fit into an unwritten “Boy Code,” says psychiatrist Pollack (co-director of the Center for Men at Harvard Medical School). The code challenges boys to be self-reliant and confident, risk takers, powerful and dominant and unemotional. The toughening process begins as early as preschool, when according to Pollack, boys are encouraged to separate from their parents—in particular their mothers—far too early and are shamed into hiding their fears and sorrow. The shaming process (don’t be a —wimp,— don’t be a —wuss—) continues into adulthood, perpetuated sometimes unconsciously by parents, teachers, and peers. Boys can become confused, frustrated, lonely, sad, and disconnected as they learn to bury feelings and behavior that would lead to taunts or teasing. Their confusion can lead to actions that on one end of the scale are characterized as “boys will be boys”—calling out in class, daring each other to new exploits—but on the other end are violent and suicidal. School statistics, which show far more boys than girls diagnosed as learning disabled or emotionally disturbed, support Pollack’s findings. The book is divided into three parts, the first an overview of the Boy Code and its effect on boys’ development. The second section gives advice to mothers and fathers on how to offset social pressure, so boys can develop into their “real selves.” Part three is a discussion of sadness, suicide, and depression, often misdiagnosed in boys, because they may try to hide it with bravado. There is a section generally approving sports as molder of boys— character but warning of tyrannical and insensitive coaches, and a section on homosexuality. Sympathetic, but with little that’s new, this project unfortunately has a kind of “Hey, we’re sensitive too” quality. Better to wait for Gilligan’s study of boys, now in the works. (Author tour)
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-375-50131-2
Page Count: 398
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
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
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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