Product Description

"Provocative enough to make you start questioning your each and every action."—Entertainment Weekly

The brain's power is confirmed and touted every day in new studies and research. And yet we tend to take our brains for granted, without suspecting that those masses of hard-working neurons might not always be working for us. Cordelia Fine introduces us to a brain we might not want to meet, a brain with a mind of its own. She illustrates the brain's tendency toward self-delusion as she explores how the mind defends and glorifies the ego by twisting and warping our perceptions. Our brains employ a slew of inborn mind-bugs and prejudices, from hindsight bias to unrealistic optimism, from moral excuse-making to wishful thinking—all designed to prevent us from seeing the truth about the world and the people around us, and about ourselves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22631 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Vain, immoral, bigoted: this is your brain in action, according to Fine, a research associate at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Australian National University. Fine documents a wealth of surprising information about the brain in this readable account that adopts a good-humored tone about the brain's failings without underestimating the damage they do. The brain, she shows, distorts reality in order to save us from the ego-destroying effects of failure and pessimism. For example, an optimist who fails at something edits the truth by blaming others for the failure and then takes complete credit for any successes. The brain also routinely disapproves of other people's behavior (how could he do that?), while at the same time interpreting one's own actions in the best possible light (I would never do that!). The brain also projects stereotypes onto others that reflect prejudicial beliefs rather than objective reality. Despite the firm hold these distortions have on our brains, Fine is not a pessimist. The path to overcoming stereotypes and other distortions of the brain, she says, may be gained through self-awareness and knowledge provided by experimental psychology, a field that explores and exposes unconscious mental influences. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Scientific American
Many psychological studies show that on average, each of us believes we are above average compared with others—more ethical and capable, better drivers, better judges of character, and more attractive. Our weaknesses are, of course, irrelevant. Such self distortion protects our egos from harm, even when nothing could be further from the truth. Our brains are the trusted advisers we should never trust. This "distorting prism" of selfknowledge is what Cordelia Fine, a psychologist at the Australian National University, calls our "vain brain." Fine documents the lengths to which a human brain will go to bias perceptions in the perceiver’s favor. When explaining to ourselves and others why something has gone well or badly, we attribute success to our own qualities, while shedding responsibility for failure. Our brains bias memory and reason, selectively editing truth to inflictless pain on our fragile selves. They also shield the ego from truth with "retroactive pessimism," insisting the odds were stacked inevitably toward doom. Alternatively, the brain of "selfhandicappers" concocts nonthreatening excuses for failure. Furthermore, our brains warp perceptions to match emotions. In the extreme, patients with Cotard delusion actually believe they are dead. So "pigheaded" is the brain about protecting its perspective that it defends cherished positions regardless of data. The "secretive" brain unconsciously directs our lives via silent neural equipment that creates the illusion of willfulness. "Never forget," Fine says, "that your unconscious is smarter than you, faster than you, and more powerful than you. It may even control you. You will never know all of its secrets." So what to do? Begin with self-awareness, Fine says, then manage the distortions as best one can. We owe it to ourselves "to lessen the harmful effects of the brain’s various shams," she adds, while admitting that applying this lesson to others is easier than to oneself. Ironically, one category of persons shows that it is possible to view life through a clearer lens. "Their self-perceptions are more balanced, they assign responsibility for success and failure more even-handedly, and their predictions for the future are more realistic. These people are living testimony to the dangers of self-knowledge," Fine asserts. "They are the clinically depressed." Case in point.

Richard Lipkin

From Booklist
Positive self-esteem, whether about one's morality, rationality, altruism, emotional maturity, or tolerance, takes a drubbing in this book. It's an unsettlingly entertaining tour of experimental psychology, which diabolically puts normality to the test. One result ripped empathy to shreds: in a 1963 obedience experiment learned by psychology students, Stanley Milgram showed how to turn anyone into a torturer. Built around discussions of particular experiments, Fine's account illustrates the clinical with personal anecdotes featuring her two-year-old boy. The kid's adamant sense of right and wrong, emotional volatility, and meanness represent every person's "terrible toddler within." Fine describes negative human traits and perceptively reflects on the brain's subconscious thoughts, which can produce pernicious habits such as blaming victims. In various ways, Fine writes, the brain is protecting the self from threats to its self--exaltation, defending against the capriciousness of the world (hence the sense of justice) or disbelief (hence traits of stubbornness and irrationality). An edifying exploration, wryly and ruefully expressed. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

A disturbing book
The earlier reader reviews (of the paperback and hardcover editions) are quite accurate about the content and tone of this book. It is very lively and easy to read. Fine presents a thorough survey of the various devices that that the subconscious uses to keep us on an even keel in an unsettling world. But those devices are devious and deceptive, and reading about them is deeply unsettling for the picture it gives of how completely at the mercy of this deviousness we are. We end up feeling that nothing is at it seems, that nothing is quite what we believed it to be, not our thoughts, not our idea of ourselves. I have read many books, both fiction and nonfiction, over the years, but I cannot remember one that so materially changed my outlook on myself and on other people. Read it at the risk of your own peace of mind!

Well worth the price; great staring place
If you are at all interested in how the mind works and what is going on behind the scenes in the thought process, then this is a very good place to start. Ms. Fine takes you on an excursion into the various emotions and convictions that shape our lives in a digestible way that is informative yet not unduly clinical. Her style is friendly and smooth and does a nice job of piquing your curiosity to delve even deeper. If you are already a student of this field of interest, you may find the book a little too tame, but for the novice, you will be drawn in quickly with this book.

Best of both worlds
In the world of brain science and psychology, there seems to be opposing camps. When the subject is geared toward general audiences, it is said to be "pop" and without substance. When written with much scientific evidence, though, the text gets laden and not especially readable. Cordelia Fine is one of those rare talents who knows her subject and knows how to write. I found A Mind of Its Own to be a best-of-both-worlds page turner. Each topic was rounded out by vignettes which made some very conceptual ideas tangible. I laughed out loud a few times in seeing others' fallability. She illustrates that we are so enamoured with our own brain power that we overlook - or refuse to look at - the ways our brains trick us. The fact that she used snippets from her own life is a courageous offering. With someone so willing to show her own vulnerabilities -- and she studies this stuff for a living -- how can you not look at your own life and the ways you may be deluding yourself? Otherwise, it's a tough pill to swallow to accept that our brains are -- according to Fine's categorizations -- Vain, Emotional, Immoral, Deluded, Pigheaded, Secretive, Weak-Willed and Bigoted. My favorite take-away is the effect of schema priming -- that we all have pictures of life (whether tested as accurate or not) which color and influence perception and decision-making. While all of this may make you want to join another species, she holds out hope: "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting, get understanding."