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The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives |  | Author: Shankar Vedantam
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Rating:  30 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0385525214
Dewey Decimal Number: 154.2
EAN: 9780385525213
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| • | ISBN13: 9780385525213 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 30
 Compulsively Readable Tales of Bias and Group Behavior January 7, 2010
Andrew Shaffer (Davenport, Iowa)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
First thing's first: Shankar Vedantam is a journalist, not a psychologist. "The Hidden Brain" represents advances in the field of psychology made in the past 30 years regarding our understanding of the human subconscious. Thankfully, Vedantam is a writer with exceptional talent, and this is a fine introduction to modern psychological theories of bias (race and gender) and groupthink. The anecdotal stories that Vedantam illustrates are gripping and will keep the reader turning the pages to find out the mysteries of our "hidden brains."
It's very clear that this book is patterned after bestsellers such as "Outliers" and "Freakonomics." There's even a little overlap on the concept of group behavior between "The Hidden Brain" and "Freakonomics, "though both authors use different anecdotal cases and come to different conclusions. Still, this is a compulsively readable book in its own right and should interest many of the same non-fiction fans who made those other books bestsellers. It certainly has that eye-opening appeal to it: Will its readers re-examine their own biases in the wake of the evidence that Vedantam presents?
But you wouldn't know that this is a book primarily about gender and racial bias from the ponderous subtitle ("How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives"). If there is a problem with "The Hidden Brain," it's clearly in the marketing department: Vedantam goes out of his way to avoid using the term "subconscious" (although he does use it once or twice, instances that may be scrubbed prior to publication as the book goes through copy-editing). Instead, he uses his own term--"the hidden brain"--and "the unconscious," both of which caused more than a little head-scratching, especially since there is no new research to support the need for a new term to describe the subconscious.
A guide to the unconscious and how it influences us. March 5, 2010
Taylor Ellwood
Proponents of mindfulness and conscious intent may be disappointed when they read this book and realize just how much our unconscious dictates and influences our decisions. The author isn't afraid to tackle tough issues, such as how the hidden brain influences people's thinking about racial and gender issues, as well as how the group mind can actually harm you as opposed to help you. I found this to be a fascinating read because the author presents some compelling evidence that supports his claim and shows just how much the unconscious effects everyday life and decisions. I recommend this book as a refreshing and eye-opening perspective on how we make decisions.
An educational, engaging, and an excellent book in every aspect January 10, 2010
Dr. Yuval Lirov (New Jersey, USA)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Vedantam, an accomplished science journalist, combines an exceptional story telling talent with modern psychology research to explore seemingly intractable questions, including why very young children exhibit racial preferences, how peaceful, professional family people become suicide bombers, and why smart and accomplished people make obviously dumb and even self-destructive decisions. The big lesson of this book is that people are powerfully influenced by things that they never consciously register.
Using engaging and absorbing case studies, Vedantam presents a theory about a second, hidden brain, which the human species developed through evolution. This hidden brain specializes in rapid analysis, kicks into action under certain conditions, and it often acts contrary to our own beliefs or common sense. Its danger is in that it is hard and often impossible for us to realize when we act according to our beliefs and when - according to our hidden brain. The central feature of unconscious bias is that we are not aware of it, so it's able to powerfully manipulate the conscious mind to act against its own will.
Here is an example of Vedantam's numerous and powerful analogies: "If the conscious mind is the pilot and the hidden brain is the autopilot function on a plane, the pilot can always overrule the autopilot, except when the pilot is not paying attention."
An educational, engaging, and an excellent book in every aspect.
Yuval Lirov, Medical Billing Networks and Processes - Profitable and Compliant Revenue Cycle Management in the Internet Age
A Fascinating Book about Our Sub-Conscious and How It Influences Our Lives January 18, 2010
Rawim (Palmdale, CA USA)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
The subtitle to this book is "How much our unconscious minds elect presidents, control markets, wage wars, and save out live." And that is exactly what you get in this book. The book is a well written exposition on how our unconscious brain controls many of our decisions, prejudices and actions without us ever even knowing it.
Now basically the author Vedantam, has compiled the research of various studies and experiments on this topic and presented it in a way that is accessible, interesting and entertaining. I was truly fascinated at how much a part of brain that we never really "Think" with controls our everyday lives, sometimes causing us to do and say things that if we really thought about it we would never do, and other times that same part of our brain saves us from danger and trouble we would never see coming.
Now the author, Shankar Vedantam, is a journalist for the Washington Post and some people have knocked that fact, since he is not a Ph.D., researcher, or a scientist, I actually don't mind. As a journalist I think the author presents all his content in very easy to read, understandable and well organized format, with a mix of some great individual stories of real people and how their lives were changed by this "hidden brain".
While this may not be a truly new concept to many; and other works like Freakonomics and The Tipping Point have covered similar areas, I still found this to be a really thought provoking and if the subject interests you and I would recommend this book. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I would be happy to answer them.
 What you don't know WILL hurt you December 31, 2009
David Field (Merrimac, MA USA)
51 out of 54 found this review helpful
Shankar Vedantam's "The Hidden Brain" is yet another one of those "Let's do a book like Malcolm Gladwell." And luckily, like Sheena Iyengar's "The Art of Choosing," it's another good one. Vedantam's subject is the part of the brain that functions unbeknown to its owner.
I thought this was called "The Subconscious," but that's not the same thing, insofar as we all have our personal subconscious. The Hidden Brain is the unconscious way we all think (or just about all of us), and it's a chilling reminder that what we think is free choice actually isn't.
Vedantam draws on recent psychological research to show some disturbing facts. He spends a whole chapter on investigating racial bias among people who never showed it. He comes to the conclusion that not only are these people biased in spite of their belief that they're not, but we are all biased, and this comes from infancy. People act unbiased against their unconscious beliefs, even in one case, a minority person whose job was to teach other people to be unbiased.
The way the hidden brain does this is so subtle that we're fooled into thinking that it's normal, conscious thinking. How else would the teacher of racial harmony find herself associating bad things with minority names? The inference is that we'll all do this. If you deny this, try the tests at "Project Implicit" at the Harvard University web site.
Another chapter is devoted to gender bias. It is sad to hear the stories of two professors at Stanford University talk about their professional life since a sex change. The woman who changed to a man says, "I am taken more seriously." He was called a better worker than his "sister" (the same person). The man who changed to a woman is now in the bottom ten percent of salaries and male colleagues shout at him at conferences when they don't agree with his point of view.
Vedantam has a chapter on why some people saved themselves on 9/11, while others stayed at their desks and died. He also has a chapter on a suicide bomber who didn't, in fact, manage to kill himself. To some degree he answers the question of "Why are suicide bombers usually well-educated and have no suicidal tendencies?"
And finally, Vedantam talks of how politicians exploit the hidden brain to get an unfair advantage at elections. You'll be surprised about what he reveals, and how to fight a barely-disguised racial slur with a rebuttal that neutralized the accusation.
All in all, a good book, well-written, and an eye opener. Definitely worth your time.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 30
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