Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts

Thursday, August 25, 2016

10.2016 Boys Adrift

Introduction:

Last month we briefly touched upon child development as Jack spent the first 5 years of his life living in Room. This month we delve further into the area of boyhood development and disturbing trends seen in this demographic.

Overview:

"Something scary is happening to boys today. From kindergarten to college, they’re less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. In fact, a third of men ages 22–34 are still living at home with their parents—about a 100 percent increase in the past twenty years. Parents, teachers, and mental health professionals are worried about boys. But until now, no one has come up with good reasons for their decline—nor, more important, with workable solutions to reverse this troubling trend. 

In Boys Adrift, family physician and research psychologist Leonard Sax tackles the problem head on, drawing on the very latest research and his vast experience with boys and their families. He argues that a combination of social and biological factors is creating an environment that is literally toxic to boys. Misguided overemphasis on reading and math as early as kindergarten, too much time spent playing video games, over-reliance on medication for attention deficit disorders (much more common in boys than in girls), and overlooked endocrine disturbances are actually causing damage to boys’ brains. 

Dr. Sax offers a wide range of reassuring remedies— including innovative ways parents can wean their sons away from video games, practical steps they can take to improve their sons’ schooling, and surprisingly simple life changes they can make to protect boys from the environmental estrogens that undermine boys’ motivation. 

Filled with moving success stories that will inspire parents and teachers everywhere, Boys Adrift points the way to a new future for today’s boys and young men."

Book Details:

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; Reprint edition (January 6, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0465072100
ISBN-13: 978-0465072101

Get Book: 

Amazon
Overdrive


Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Predictably Irrational

Book Club #7! Our first foray into the Non-fiction genre.

About the Book:

Predictably Irrational

 

 Summary: 

Dan Ariely performs research in behavioral economics and attempts to explain his observations and findings in plain language for the general public. People may know better but act completely irrational or be distracted by irrelevant factors from making rational decisions. Examples range from comparing two similar objects and being tricked by marketing decoys to procrastination to how the placebo effect may be effecting clinical trials and inflating drug prices.

 

Characters:

  • Dan Ariely
  • Irrational people like you and me

 

Questions:

1. Relativity says that if you provide a decoy (A-) that is slightly less enticing than the original (A), people will avoid comparing equally enticing options A and B and focus on the two options that are easy to compare (A and A-). People typically choose A. Several marketing examples were given in the book. Are there scenarios in which relativity/relative advantage does not work? Can you provide an example where you may think you may have fallen for relativity?

2. Americans have problems saving and getting out of debt. Is there anything you are saving for/debt you are trying to get out of and what technique are you employing? Is there anything you would add after reading this book?

3. Which lesson/advice was most meaningful to you or stuck out to you the most?

4. Dan Ariely recently published an article that about the increasing placebo effect and effects on FDA trials. Do you believe in Western medicine and/or supplements? Do you think they are effective? How do you feel about FDA trials?

5. Free things and public/corporate trust seem at odds. There was a case that Dan brought up where he actually put money on the table and only 19% of people took the $50 bill from the table. Is there a situation when you were enticed by something free but didn't take advantage because of the fine print?

 

Conversation Summary:

Discussion topics:
  • sections that stuck out: arousal affecting people's judgement, researchers observed college students more willing to try bestiality or deceiving women for sex
  • favorite sections: procrastination, relativity, artificially affecting market demands, placebo effect
  • experience: no longer being interested in free items, more skeptical, more in tune with market norms, comparing salaries
  • things learned or plans for future change:
    • to fight procrastination, make a plan/timeline based on what you know about yourself and employ an authoritative figure to make you stick to it
    • do not be fooled by artificial market valuation, lab diamonds are just as good or better than natural diamonds
    • consider all factors when comparing options, not just the factors that are easy to compare
    • be wary of placebo effect
  • other topics: vitamins/dietary supplements, doctors and patient satisfaction, clinical trials, lying/ altering truth, marketing
From now on, we will choose books 2 months in advance so there is more time to find the next book.

2/3 bears finished book and loved it

References:

1. Employees quitting over coworkers' pay raises
http://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/the-70000-minimum-wage-experiment-reveals-a-dark-truth.html/

2.  FDA clinical trials
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/medical-trials-are-jeopardy-due-extreme-hypochondria-americans-1523428

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

10.2015 Predictably Irrational

Introduction:

Throwing a nonfiction book in the mix.


Book Jacket:

Irrational behavior is a part of human nature, but as MIT professor Ariely has discovered in 20 years of researching behavioral economics, people tend to behave irrationally in a predictable fashion. Drawing on psychology and economics, behavioral economics can show us why cautious people make poor decisions about sex when aroused, why patients get greater relief from a more expensive drug over its cheaper counterpart and why honest people may steal office supplies or communal food, but not money. According to Ariely, our understanding of economics, now based on the assumption of a rational subject, should, in fact, be based on our systematic, unsurprising irrationality. Ariely argues that greater understanding of previously ignored or misunderstood forces (emotions, relativity and social norms) that influence our economic behavior brings a variety of opportunities for reexamining individual motivation and consumer choice, as well as economic and educational policy. Ariely's intelligent, exuberant style and thought-provoking arguments make for a fascinating, eye-opening read.

Book Details:

Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1 Exp Rev edition
Published: April 27, 2010
ISBN: 9780061353246
ISBN13: 978-0061353246


Get Book: 

Amazon
Audible
Overdrive