My Book recommendations

Mean Genes, by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan

2008-11-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

Mean Genes

By Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan

Narrated by Pat Woodruff

What the Critics Say

"Mean Genes is a surprisingly fun read, filled with amazing data that could keep any reader talking through many cocktail parties" - Boston Globe

Publisher's Summary
Why do we want - and do - so many things that are bad for us? We vow to lose those extra five pounds, put money in the bank, and mend neglected relationships, but our attempts often end in failure. Our toughest battles, it seems, are with ourselves. To understand this fundamental aspect of human nature, Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan argue, we need to stop looking to Sigmund Freud - and start looking to Charles Darwin.

Short, sassy, and bold Mean Genes reveals that our struggles for self-improvement are, in fact, battles against our own genes - genes that helped our distant ancestors flourish, but are selfish and out of place in the modern world.

Using this evolutionary lens, Mean Genes brilliantly examines the issues that most affect our lives: body image, money, addiction, violence, and the endless search for friendship, love, and fidelity. But Burnham and Phelan don't simply describe the connections between genes and behavior. They use this knowledge to offer steps for improving the quality of our lives.

Why do we love fast food? Why is the road to romance so rocky? Must happiness always be elusive? What drives us into debt? An intrepid investigation into the biological nature of temptation and the struggle for control, Mean Genes answers these and other fundamental questions about human behavior, while giving us an edge to lead satisfying lives.

Beer.com says "It's not some corny self-help book either. It doesn't preach. In fact, it doesn't care if you continue to abuse yourself beyond recognition. It just attempts to explain why you bought that car you can't afford, ate that box of donuts you don't need and why, lordy lord, you continue to drink that cheap, generic beer when your bladder and liver are begging for an elevated variety."

Terry Burnham, Ph.D., is a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School. He received his Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard in 1997, and was an economics professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government from 1997 until he joined the HBS faculty. He has worked on Wall Street and co-founded Progenics, a publicly traded biotechnology firm with promising treatments for cancer and AIDS. Terry has studied wild chimpanzees in Africa, and served with distinction as a tank driver in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Jay Phelan, Ph.D., is a biology professor at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard in 1995, and master's and bachelor's degrees from Yale and UCLA. His main area of research is evolutionary genetics and aging. He has been featured on BBC and Talk of the Nation, as well as in magazines and newspapers. An accomplished educator, Jay has received accolades and numerous awards for his teaching.

©2000 by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan

(P) 2000 Random House, Inc.

Available at www.audible.com

Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell

2008-11-30T18:07:00.000-08:00

Outliers: The Story of Success

By Malcolm Gladwell

Narrated by Malcolm Gladwell

Publisher's Summary
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

©2008 Malcom Gladwell; (P)2008 Hachette Audio

Available at www.audible.com

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference , by Malcolm Gladwell

2008-11-30T18:04:00.000-08:00

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

By Malcolm Gladwell

Narrated by Malcolm Gladwell

Audible Editor Reviews
Why we think it's Essential: Like the best social dynamics professor you never had, Malcolm Gladwell deconstructs a wide range of phenomena (from the reduction of crime in New York to the rise of Sesame Street) to deliver a fascinating understanding of how "social epidemics" spread. And while author/narrators are often a mixed blessing, Gladwell is so friendly and well-paced that I was actually disappointed when The Tipping Point was over. —Ed Walloga
Publisher's Summary
Featuring a new afterword.

Why did crime in New York drop in the mid-90s? Why is teenage smoking out of control? Why are television shows like Sesame Street good at teaching kids how to read?

In The Tipping Point, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in society happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters and graffiti artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the empty tables of a new restaurant. These are social epidemics, and the moment when they take off, when they reach their critical mass, is the Tipping Point.

Gladwell uncovers the personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends. He analyzes fashion trends, smoking, children's television, direct mail and the early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas infectious.

The Tipping Point is an intellectual adventure story with an infectious enthusiasm for the power and joy of new ideas. Most of all, it is a road map to change, with a profoundly hopeful message: that one imaginative person applying a well-placed lever can move the world.

©2007 Malcolm Gladwell; (P)2007 Hachette Audio

Available at www.audible.com

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking , by Malcolm Gladwell

2008-11-30T18:00:00.000-08:00

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

By Malcolm Gladwell

Narrated by Malcolm Gladwell

What the Critics Say

2005 Quill Award Nominee
"Entertaining and illuminating." (Publishers Weekly)
"Gladwell's groundbreaking explication of a key aspect of human nature is enlightening, provocative, and great fun to read." (Booklist)

Publisher's Summary
In his landmark best seller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant, in the blink of an eye, that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work, in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?

In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing", filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology and displaying all of the brilliance that made The Tipping Point a classic, Blink changes the way you understand every decision you make. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.

Available at www.audible.com

Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain's Potential ,by Richard M. Restak

2008-11-30T02:34:00.000-08:00

Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain's Potential ,
by Richard M. Restak

Publisher's Summary
In Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot, eminent neuropsychiatrist and best-selling author Richard Restak, M.D., combines the latest research in neurology and psychology to show us how to get our brain up to speed for managing every aspect of our busy lives.
Everything we think and everything we choose to do alters our brain and fundamentally changes who we are, a process that continues until the end of our lives. Few people think of the brain as being susceptible to change in its actual structure, but in fact we can preselect the kind of brain we will have by continually exposing ourselves to rich and varied life experiences. Unlike other organs that eventually wear out with repeated and sustained use, the brain actually improves the more we challenge it.
Think of Restak as a personal trainer for your brain - he will help you assess your mental strengths and weaknesses, and set you to thinking about the world and the people around you in a new light, providing you with improved and varied skills and capabilities. From interacting with colleagues to recognizing your own psychological makeup, from understanding the way you see something to why you're looking at it in the first place, from explaining the cause of panic attacks to warding off performance anxiety, this book will tell you the whys and hows of the brain's workings.
Packed with practical advice and fascinating examples drawn from history, literature, and science, Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot provides 28 informative and realistic steps that we can all take to improve our brainpower.
Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot is also available in print from Harmony Books.
Richard Restak, M.D. is a neurologist, neuropsychiatrist, and clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University Medical Center. He is the author of the best selling book The Brain, a companion to the PBS series of the same name, as well as The Mind and The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own. He lives in Washington, D.C

Available for download at www.audible.com

Five Minds for the Future, by Howard Gardner

2008-11-30T02:29:00.000-08:00

Five Minds for the Future
By
Howard Gardner

What the Critics Say
"One of the most influential psychologists of his generation." (The Economist)
Publisher's Summary
We live in a time of vast changes that include accelerating globalization, mounting quantities of information, the growing hegemony of science and technology, and the clash of civilizations. Those changes call for new ways of learning and thinking in school, business, and the professions. Listen as psychologist Howard Gardner defines the cognitive abilities that will command a premium in the years ahead:
The disciplinary mind: mastery of major schools of thought
The synthesizing mind: ability to integrate ideas
The creating mind: capacity to uncover and clarify problems, questions, and phenomena
The respectful mind: awareness of and appreciation for differences among human beings
The ethical mind: fulfillment of one's responsibilities
Armed with these well-honed capacities, a person will be equipped to deal with what is expected in the future, as well as what cannot be anticipated. Without these "minds", individuals will be at the mercy of forces they can't understand: overwhelmed by information, unable to succeed in the workplace, and incapable of making judicious decisions about personal and professional matters.
Renowned worldwide for his theory of multiple intelligences, Gardner takes that thinking to the next level. Concise and engaging, this audiobook will inspire lifelong learning and provide valuable insights for those charged with training and developing organizational leaders - today and tomorrow.
©2007 Howard Gardner; (P)2007 Gildan Media Corp

Available for download at www.audible.com

The Truth About Lies, by Andy Shea and Steve Van Aperen

2008-11-30T02:25:00.000-08:00

The Truth About Lies
By
Andy Shea and Steve Van Aperen

Publisher's Summary
This compelling audiobook will change the way you look at people forever. Two well-respected experts examine how to distinguish fact from fiction in a wide range of contexts. Who lies more easily: men or women? Why does anyone lie in the first place? How can you tell? What do you look for?
The Truth About Lies will help you separate fact from fiction. It will help you tell who's lying and who's telling the truth. It will show you how to detect a liar from what people say, how they say it, and from their body language.
From medieval witch-dunking to state-of-the-art truth serums, Andy Shea and Steve Van Aperen use examples from history and from modern-day celebrity cases to spin a tale about lies and lie detection through the ages. They pull apart written and spoken words to explain how lies are so hard to carry off - because our bodies betray us - and, if you know what to look for, how easy lies are to spot.
The Truth About Lies provides compelling insight into why people lie and how to make sure you don't get taken for a ride.
©2006 Andy Shea and Steve Van Aperen; (P)2006 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Available for download at www.audible.com

Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You ,by Sam Gosling

2008-11-30T02:22:00.000-08:00

Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You
By
Sam Gosling

Publisher's Summary
For the last 10 years, psychologist Sam Gosling has been studying how people project (and protect) their inner selves. By exploring our private worlds (desks, bedrooms, even our clothes and our cars), he shows not only how we showcase our personalities in unexpected - and unplanned - ways, but also how we create personality in the first place, communicate it to others, and interpret the world around us.
Gosling, one of the field's most innovative researchers, dispatches teams of scientific snoops to poke around dorm rooms and offices, to see what can be learned about people simply from looking at their stuff.
What he has discovered is astonishing: when it comes to the most essential components of our personalities, the things we own and the way we arrange them often say more about us than even our most intimate conversations.

Available for download at www.audible.com

Freud: A Very Short Introduction, by Anthony Storr

2008-11-30T02:14:00.000-08:00

Freud: A Very Short Introduction
Anthony Storr

What the Critics Say
"British narrator Neville Jason sets a slow pace suited for listeners needing to absorb challenging new terms and ideas. His reading style...adds warmth to the otherwise cold rhetoric, elevating this audio-educational experience from dull to pleasant." (AudioFile)

Publisher's Summary
Sigmund Freud revolutionized the way in which we think about ourselves. From its beginnings as a theory of neurosis Freud developed psychoanalysis into a general psychology, which became widely accepted as the predominant mode of discussing personality and interpersonal relationships. Anthony Storr goes one step further and investigates the status of Freud's legacy today and the disputes that surround it.
©1989 Anthony Storr; (P)2003 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd.

Available for download at www.audible.com

The Life of Oscar Wilde, by Hesketh Pearson

2008-11-30T02:09:00.000-08:00

The Life of Oscar Wilde
By
Hesketh Pearson

Publisher's Summary
This is the remarkable and tragic story of Oscar Wilde, legendary wit and conversationalist, author of perhaps the most perfect comedy in the English language, yet seemingly doomed by his own flawed temperament to suffer at the hands of a censorious and hypocritical society...
© and (P)1995 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd.

Available for download at www.audible.com

Jung: A Very Short Introduction, by Anthony Stevens

2008-11-30T02:06:00.000-08:00

Jung: A Very Short Introduction
By
Anthony Stevens

Publisher's Summary
Anthony Stevens argues that Jung's visionary powers and profound spirituality have helped many to find an alternative set of values to the arid materialism prevailing Western society.
This concise introduction explains clearly the basic concepts of Jungian psychology: the collective unconscious, complex, archetype, shadow, persona, anima, animus, and the individuation of the Self. Anthony Stevens examines Jung's views on such disparate subjects as myth, religion, alchemy, "synchronicity", and the psychology of gender differences. He devotes separate chapters to the stages of life, Jung's theory of psychological types, the interpretation of dreams, the practice of Jungian analysis, and to the unjust allegation that Jung was a Nazi sympathiser.
©1994, 2003 Anthony Stevens; (P)2003 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd.

Available for download at www.audible.com

50 Psychology Classics ,by Tom Butler-Bowdon

2008-11-30T02:03:00.000-08:00

50 Psychology Classics
By
Tom Butler-Bowdon

What the Critics Say
"Butler-Bowdon writes with infectious enthusiasm....He is a true scholar of this type of literature." (USA Today)
Publisher's Summary
Who we are...how we think...what we do....Here are insight and inspiration from 50 key books, including works by Sigmund Freud, Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Goleman, Karen Horney, Carl Jung, Alfred Kinsey, R.D. Laing, Jean Piaget, Martin Seligman, Oliver Sacks, Gail Sheehy, and BF Skinner.
Spanning hundreds of ideas developed over the past century, 50 Psychology Classics also explores important contemporary writings, such as Gladwell's Blink and Seligman's Authentic Happiness. Listeners will gain insight into the scientific research of leading contemporary psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists. And they'll discover why we think and act the way we do from the landmark best sellers of psychology.
With insightful commentaries on each classic, biographical information on the authors, plus a guide to further key titles, 50 Psychology Classics provides a unique overview of this fascinating subject.
©2007 Tom Butler-Bowdon; (P)2007 Gildan Media Corp.

Available for download at www.audible.com

Mindfulness, by Ellen J. Langer

2008-11-30T01:58:00.000-08:00

Mindfulness, by Ellen J. Langer

What the Critics Say
"A landmark work of social psychology." (Booklist)"Langer....has shown us the power of mindfulness." (Psychology Today)"A truly pioneering study of the dangers and damage of mindlessness and loss of control over one's life; for women and men in age, in corporations and/or in the professions." (Betty Friedan)

Publisher's Summary
Ellen J. Langer, Harvard professor of psychology, determines that the mindless following of routine and other automatic behaviors lead to much error, pain, and a predetermined course of life.
In this thought-provoking audiobook, her research has been "translated" for the lay listener. With anecdotes and metaphors, Langer explains how the mindless (as opposed to the mindful) develop mindsets of categories, associations, and habits of thought born of repetition in childhood and throughout schooling. To be mindful, she notes, stressing process over outcome, allows free rein to intuition and creativity, and opens us to new information and perspectives.
Langer discusses the negative impact of mindsets on business and social relations, showing special concern for the elderly, who often suffer from learned helplessness and lack of options.
Encouraging the application of mindfulness to health, the author affirms that placebos and alternative, mind-based therapies can help patients and addicts move from unhealthy to healthy contexts.
©1989 Ellen J. Langer, Ph.D.; (P)2007 Gildan Media Corp

Available for download at www.audible.com

Differentiate or Die, by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin

2008-11-30T01:51:00.000-08:00

Differentiate or Die

By
Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin

Publisher's Summary
In today's ultra-competitive world, the average supermarket has 40,000 brand items on its shelves. Car shoppers can wander through the showrooms of over 20 automobile makers. For marketers, differentiating products today is more challenging than at any time in history - yet it remains at the heart of successful marketing. More importantly, it remains the key to a company's survival.
In Differentiate or Die, best selling author Jack Trout doesn't beat around the bush. He takes marketers to task for taking the easy route too often, employing high-tech razzle-dazzle and sleight of hand when they should be working to discover and market their product's uniquely valuable qualities. He examines successful differentiation initiatives - from giants like Dell Computer, Southwest Airlines, and Wal-Mart to smaller success stories like Streit's Matzoh and Connecticut's tiny Trinity College - to determine why some marketers succeed at differentiating themselves while others fail.
Differentiate or Die outlines the many ways you can achieve differentiation. It also warns how difficult it can be to achieve differentiation by being creative, cheap, customer-oriented, or quality-driven - things that your competitor can do as well.
©2000 Jack Trout; (P)2001 Blackstone Audiobooks

Available for download at www.audible.com

Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing,By Harry Beckwith

2008-11-30T01:46:00.000-08:00

Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing

By
Harry Beckwith

What the Critics Say
"Beckwith provides an excellent forum for thinking differently about the nature of services and how they can be effectively marketed. If you're at all involved in marketing or sales, then Selling the Invisible is definitely worth a look." (Amazon.com)"Actor Jeffrey Jones's narration professionally conveys these excellent ideas." (Library Journal)
Publisher's Summary
A treasury of hundreds of quick, practical, and easy-to-read strategies. Your eyes will be opened to new ideas in this crucial branch of marketing, including why focus groups, value-price positioning, discount pricing, and being the best usually fail; the critical emotion that most influences your prospects - and how to deal with it; the vital role of vividness, focus, "anchors", and stereotypes; the importance of Halo, Cocktail Party, and Lake Wobegon Effects; marketing lessons from black holes, grocery lists, the Hearsay Rule, and the fame of Pikes Peak; dozens of proven yet consistently over-looked ideas for research, presentations, publicity, advertising, and client retention; and much more.
©2008 Harry Beckwith; (P)2008 Hachette Audio

Available for download at www.audible.com

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, By Nassim Nicholas Taleb

2008-11-30T01:41:00.001-08:00

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
By
Nassim Nicholas Taleb

What the Critics Say
"[Taleb] administers a severe thrashing to MBA- and Nobel Prize-credentialed experts who make their living from economic forecasting." (Booklist)"The hubris of predictions - and our perpetual surprise when the not-predicted happens - are themes of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's engaging new book....It concerns the occurrence of the improbable, the power of rare events and the author's lament that 'in spite of the empirical record we continue to project into the future as if we were good at it.'" (The New York Times)
Publisher's Summary
Maverick thinker Nassim Nicholas Taleb had an illustrious career on Wall Street before turning his focus to his black swan theory. Not all swans are white, and not all events, no matter what the experts think, are predictable. Taleb shows that black swans, like 9/11, cannot be foreseen and have an immeasurable impact on the world.
©2007 Nassim Nicholas Taleb; (P)2007 Recorded Books, LLC

Available for download at www.audible.com

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom ,By Jonathan HaidtAssociate Professor of PsychologyUniversity of Virginia

2008-11-30T01:31:00.000-08:00

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
By Jonathan HaidtAssociate Professor of PsychologyUniversity of Virginia

What the Critics Say

"An intellectual tour de force that weaves into one fabric wisdom that is ancient and modern, religious and scientific, Eastern and Western, liberal and conservative—all with the aim of pointing us to a more meaningful, moral, and satisfying life.”-- David G. Myers, Professor of Psychology, Hope College, author of Intuition: Its Powers and Perils
“For the reader who seeks to understand happiness, my advice is: Begin with Haidt.”--Martin E. P. Seligman, Professor of psychology, University of Pennsylvania, author of Authentic Happiness
Recent Publicity:
On the Today Show (2/28/06).
On CBC Radio-One (Canada) (4/23/06)
Reviewed in Nature (5/4/06), "the most intellectually substantial book to arise from the positive psychology movement"
Reviewed in the Times of London: "riveting..., the most humane, witty and comforting of these three books." (8/6/06)
Named one of the "Best Books of 2006" by Library Journal, and by The Seattle Times.
Video: Speaking at New Yorker 2012 conference
Useful features:
Using the Happiness Hypothesis to increase your happiness. (It's not a self-help book, but you can make it one)
Know your strengths, improve your work
Guide for teachers/professors, how to use the book in a psychology class

"I don't think I've ever read a book that laid out the comtemporary understanding of the human condition with such simple clarity and sense." (The Guardian, UK)"A delightful book...by some margin the most intellectually substantial book to arise from the 'positive psychology' movement." (Nature)"Fascinating stuff, accessibly expressed." (Booklist)
Publisher's Summary
This is a book about 10 "Great Ideas". Each chapter is an attempt to savor one idea that has been discovered by several of the world's civilizations - to question it in light of what we now know from scientific research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives.
©2006 Jonathan Haidt; (P)2007 Gildan Media

Available for download at www.audible.com

Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, By Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield

2008-11-30T01:25:00.000-08:00

Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, By
Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield

Publisher's Summary
From the New York Times best-selling authors of Crucial Conversations.... Whether your goal is to change minds, change markets, or change the world - anything is possible for an influencer.
Everyone wants to be an influencer. We all want to learn how to help ourselves and others change behavior. And yet, in spite of the fact that we routinely attempt to do everything from lose weight to improve quality at work, few of us have more than one or two ideas about how to exert influence. For the first time, Influencer brings together the breakthrough strategies of contemporary influence masters. By drawing from the skills of hundreds of successful influencers and combining them with five decades of the best social-science research, Influencer shares eight powerful principles for changing behaviors - principles almost anyone can apply to change almost anything.
©2007 Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler; (P)2007 HighBridge Company

Available for download at www.audible.com

The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold, by Robert Levine, Ph.D.

2008-11-30T01:16:00.000-08:00

THE POWEROF PERSUASION How We're Bought and Sold
Questia Media America, Inc.

www.questia.com (Digital online library)

Robert Levine, Ph.D.

Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com Publication Information: Book Title: The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold. Contributors: Robert Levine - author. Publisher: Wiley. Place of Publication: Hoboken, NJ. Publication Year: 2003. Page Number: *.

INTRODUCTION
When I was growing up in Brooklyn we had a standard put-down for intellectuals: “Good school smarts, no street smarts.” I suspect most of us who make our way up the academic ladder are prone to the shortcoming. After all, in the majority of our disciplines we're trained to conduct research and write manuscripts, to give lectures and exams, not to live by our wits. But in my own field—social psychology—the affliction can be particularly onerous. If you're studying nuclear physics, it doesn't really matter what you know about real life. You don't need a lot of social skills to run a linear particle accelerator or a spectrophotometer. Social psychologists, however, are in the business of people. Who cares if we master technical jargon and sophisticated research methodology if it doesn't add to our understanding of real people in real settings?
Which means that to research this book properly, I had to leave the academy and journey into that tangled netherland social scientists call “the field” and everyone else calls “the real world.” So, along with a number of adventurous students, I threw myself directly into the path of persuasion professionals, those whose lives depend not on theories but on actual results, in order to observe their methods firsthand and discover their secrets. I would quickly learn that we persuasion professors have much more to learn from them than they have to learn from us.
We began with the salespeople. We listened to hucksters selling everything from Tupperware and cosmetics to health and religion. We listened to pitches for time-shares and kitchenware. One of us watched a woman in a neighbor's home—a “good friend from Florida” who happened to be visiting—sell a roomful of friends a “one-size-fits-all magnetic Model 52 shoe insole, proven in scientific research to change your body's energy field—only $70 plus tax.” We put ourselves at the mercy of the purest of the trade's artists: automobile salespeople. I observed
those who use their skills to control others' lives—the heavyweights— such as politicians, psychotherapists, and religious and cult leaders.
I also spoke to many people who have been on the receiving end of the process. These range from consumers who were induced to make purchases they didn't need to former Moonies and Jonestown survivors. They vary from individuals who are convinced they've been saved to those who believe they were ruined by psychobabbling control freaks.
Finally, I've tried to learn firsthand. I went to seminars and training sessions that teach the tricks of the trade. I studied magicians, mentalists, and assorted flimflam men. Most educational of all, I took jobs selling cars and hawking cutlery door-to-door.
To be sure, this book also draws heavily on my school smarts, be what they may. As a professor and researcher in the field, I've studied many of the numerous systematic investigations—of which, for better and for worse, there are thousands—that have been conducted on the psychology of persuasion and its many applications. These scientific findings permeate this book. But I've tried to be selective about which studies I report. One of the accusations sometimes leveled at social science research—a variant of the “no street smarts” problem—is how often our findings fall into the category of “Bubbe psychology”: using academic jargon to describe something your grandmother could have told you. I've done my best to extract findings that are at best surprising and at the very least useful.
For instance, the direct, verbal approach—where I try to win you over to my way of thinking—has been studied extensively, most notably in a classic series of experiments by psychologist Carl Hovland and his colleagues at Yale University. They and other researchers would consider such questions as whether it's more effective to present one or both sides of an argument (answer: one-sided appeals are most effective when the audience is already sympathetic to your position; two-sided appeals work better when the audience is already considering a conflicting argument), and whether you should present a carefully reasoned argument or one that appeals to emotions (answer: it depends on the audience—lesseducated people are generally more susceptible to emotional appeals; better-educated audiences are more responsive to rational appeals). 1
But the actual content of the message is just one part of the persuasion process. Over and over I learned that what is said is often less important than how it is said, when and where it is said, and who says
it. It's the setup, the context, the nondirect, nonverbal features of the process that persuasion artists know how to exploit. These subtle, silent features of the process are the focus of this book.
My research had led me to three broad conclusions. First, we're more susceptible to persuasion than we think. People tend to have a curious illusion of personal invulnerability to manipulation—a belief that we're not as vulnerable as others around us. In part, this illusion derives from the subtlety of clever operators who make it hard to see that you're being manipulated. In part, it feeds off another “normal” illusion—that we're more capable and, so, better defended than other people. The illusion of invulnerability is a comforting notion for moving forward in an unpredictable and dangerous world. Unfortunately, however, the more immune we feel, the less likely we are to take precautions and, as a result, the more susceptible than ever we become.
Second, the most effective persuaders are the least obvious. Almost everyone is savvy enough to put his or her guard up against the fasttalkers—pushy salespeople, aggressive con artists, and egotistical leaders. The people who often get through to us, however, are more subtle. They seem likable, honest, and trustworthy. As Abraham Lincoln once observed, “There's nothing stronger than gentleness.” And they move gradually—so gradually, in fact, that we may not realize what we've gotten ourselves into until it's too late. The most successful salesmen, as we'll see, don't appear to be salesmen at all. In the 1950s, Vance Packard wrote a best-selling book, The Hidden Persuaders, in which he claimed to reveal how Madison Avenue was using extraordinary, devious techniques based on the powers of psychoanalysis, most famously in the form of subliminal messages, to sell us products with astonishing rates of success. Subsequent research offers virtually no support for Packard's hypotheses—neither that subliminal techniques were often used nor that they had any success when they were. But the term hidden persuader is a good one: the most effective persuasion often takes place when we don't recognize we're being persuaded. It borders on the invisible.
Third, the rules of persuasion aren't all that different no matter who is the source. Whether people are selling Tupperware or eternity, it seems that most are reading from the same manual, and often the same page. I've come to agree with the words of advertising commentator Sid Bernstein: “Of course you sell candidates for political office the same way you sell soap or sealing wax or whatever; because, when you get right down to it, that's the only way anything is sold.” 2 The
effectiveness of virtually all these experts' strategies can be explained by a finite number of principles. The content of the come-on may differ dramatically, but not the form. I don't mean to make persuasion sound overly mechanical. There's a great deal of artistry involved—watching the professionals makes it clear it's as much an art as it is a science— and it's often the creativity and artistry that make it so fascinating to watch. But the persuasion artist is only effective to the degree he or she follows certain rules of psychology. I've tried in this book to highlight the psychological techniques you're most likely to come across in the world of persuasion. They vary around a few common themes. But we best be prepared for their swift intensity.
It's important to recognize, however, that persuasion isn't an inherently exploitive force. It's not so much a crystallized weapon as it is a process; no less, in fact, than the process underlying virtually all meaningful social communication. After all, doesn't communication boil down to either requesting information that may in some way change us or dispensing messages that we hope will change others? Persuasion covers considerably more than the conniving tricks of bullies and con artists. Teaching, parenting, and friendship rest on skills of persuasion, as do self-change and discipline. “Mastery of others is strength; mastery of yourself is true power, ” Lao-tzu once wrote. If we accept that humans are social animals, then the psychology of persuasion—knowing both how to use it and how to resist it—should be viewed as an essential life skill. Questions of the morality of persuasion are best reserved for how and for what purposes the process is used, not whether it's used. (I'll have more to say about ethics in the last chapter.)
I use the term persuasion in its broadest sense in this book. By it, I refer to the psychological dynamics that cause people to be changed in ways they wouldn't have if left alone. The term serves as an umbrella that encompasses a number of related concepts in psychology: basic processes such as influence, control, attitude change, and compliance; and more ominous-sounding extremes like mind control and brainwashing.
My ultimate interest is how people are manipulated to do things they never thought they'd do and are later sorry they did. The following chapters contain tales of human imperfection and the psychology behind them. They're offered in the spirit of some old advice from Eleanor Roosevelt: “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.”

I Have Been Here Before, by Priestley, J.B.

2008-11-24T20:02:00.000-08:00

Three Time-Plays: Dangerous Corner; Time and the Conways & I Have Been Here Before,
by Priestley, J.B.

"I Have Been Here Before" is definitely my favorite one, possibly one of the
most inspiring plays I have ever read.
Marco Rodrigo

Persuasion IQ by Kurt Mortensen www.audible.com

2008-11-24T18:55:00.000-08:00

http://www.persuasioninstitute.com/
Persuasion IQ by Kurt Mortensen
Available at:
www.audible.com

How persuasive are you?http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/15/news/economy/persuasive.fortune/index.htm
Most of us aren't nearly as skilled at influencing others as we think we are, says one expert.

(Fortune) -- They're often at the top of companies, or in sales -- those lucky people who seem to be born persuasive, with a seemingly magical ability that makes others listen to them, trust them, and act on what they say.
But, "regardless of actual job title, we all persuade for a living," says Kurt Mortensen, founder of a consulting firm called the Persuasion Institute (www.persuasioninstitute.com).
He has a point: Whether you're a salesperson, a team leader trying to coax a group to work in a smarter way, an employee asking for a raise, or simply someone with great ideas to share with co-workers or higher-ups, the one skill essential to success is persuasiveness.
Mortensen, who spent 15 years studying all the available research on how to influence others, came up with his own system, detailed in his latest book, Persuasion IQ: The 10 Skills You Need to Get Exactly What You Want (Amacom Books, $21.95). I recently spoke with Mortensen about his ideas. Some excerpts from our conversation:
Q. Why did you spend 15 years studying persuasiveness?
A. Frankly, I was mad. I had spent $50,000 on an MBA and picked up some great core skills - marketing, finance, and so on - but none of it seemed to be helping me get ahead in my career. I soon found out that the technical knowledge B-schools were teaching [when he got his degree in 1993] account for only about 15% of anyone's business success. The other 85% comes from so-called people skills, of which the ability to persuade is the most important. So I set out to learn as much as I could about it.
Q. What was the most striking thing you learned?
A. It turns out that there are more than 100 methods of getting someone else to trust you and agree with you, but most of us only use the same three or four techniques we learned when we were children. These include whining until you get your way; or bullying, especially if you're a boss; or bribery, which is saying, "I'll do that for you if you do this for me." In the grown-up business world, those methods are often not very useful. Most people really need to learn some new techniques. Using the techniques we learned as kids may get us short-term compliance, but why settle for that when you could have long-term influence?
Q. Can you give us an example of an effective grown-up persuasion technique?
A. Yes. Let's take, for instance, how we handle objections, whether from a customer or some other audience, such as a boss we're asking for a raise. Early on in life, we learn to perceive objections as opposition, so we get defensive. An unskilled persuader, often without realizing it, will show tension, uneasiness, or irritation when someone raises an objection, usually because the objection or concern stirs up the persuader's own insecurities: "Aren't I doing a good enough job explaining this? Didn't I go over that already?" This way of thinking will only make matters worse.
By contrast, great persuaders who have learned new persuasion skills know how to welcome objections. Instead of seeing them as opposition, these persuaders see objections as a natural, and valuable, part of the process. They use their audience's concerns as a way to open a dialogue, a chance to exchange ideas and discover new areas of common ground. Truly great persuaders may cut to the chase by addressing an objection before it's even been voiced, just to get that communications ball rolling.
Q. What kind of consulting work do you do? What do your corporate clients want?
A. Companies bring me in to address problems with customer service, or with managers who are having trouble motivating people. Or there are situations where employees are lying to managers, saying they'll do things they never intended to do. Or sometimes it's a question of salespeople who can't win customers' trust. You know, there was a big study at Harvard a few years ago that showed that when people get fired, 66% of the time it's because of "people issues," not a lack of technical proficiency. It's the inability to figure out what others really want or need and address that. And I do see lots of those problems in the companies where I consult.
Q. In the book you mention "the Wobegon effect." Want to tell us a bit about that?
A. In Garrison Keillor's fictional town Lake Wobegon, all the children are above average -- and when I ask a roomful of businesspeople to rate their own people skills, 90% say they're above average. We rate ourselves very high on thinking people like us, people trust us, we're great at getting along with other people, and so on. That's the Wobegon effect. What I'm saying is that really successful people are open to the idea that they may have strengths and weaknesses in their people skills, and the weaknesses may be holding them back.
Q. A big part of persuasion is establishing trust. How do you do that?
A. One interesting aspect of it is credibility. When someone meets you for the first time, if you reveal a weakness, you are likely to win that person's trust. That's because people are looking for a weakness, and they will assign one to you, so you might as well control the process. Also, we've all been taught never to let a weakness show, so it's disarming to come right out and state one. I don't mean a huge weakness, like you're an axe murderer. I mean, for example, let's say you're a one-person business and your competition is a huge company. You might say, "Look, I know we're small, but that means we can focus on your particular needs better than the big guys" -- or whatever you can find to say that will turn that weakness into a strength. First acknowledge it, bring it out into the open, and then turn it in your favor.
Q. What's the biggest mistake most people make in trying to persuade others?
A. Well, it depends on the person, but one very common error is to over-persuade. I think we've all been on the receiving end of this, where someone is giving you 101 reasons why you should agree with them or do what they want you to do, and you were already convinced 10 minutes ago and now you just want them to go away. The irony is that, if you really listen, a person will tell you everything you need to know to persuade them. But most people are so busy thinking about what they're going to say next that they miss all those signals. Persuasion is first and foremost a matter of paying attention. It's not inherent - it's a skill you can learn.
Readers, what do you say? Have you been able to win over a reluctant boss (or client, or co-worker) to your point of view? How did you do it? What hasn't worked? What persuasion techniques do you find effective - or not - when people use them on you?

Buy.ology by Martin Lindstrom

2008-11-23T13:36:00.000-08:00

This book speaks for itself.... You won't want to miss this one....

http://www.martinlindstrom.com/index.php/cmsid__buyology_about

Available at www.audible.com

SUMMERHILL A RADICAL APPROACH TO CHILD REARING, By A. S. NEILL

2008-11-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

Title in Portuguese: Liberdade sem medo

SUMMERHILL A RADICAL APPROACH TO CHILD REARING
By A. S. NEILL
With a Foreword by Erich Fromm

HART PUBLISHING COMPANY New York City
-v-

Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com Publication Information: Book Title: Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing. Contributors: A. S. Neill - author. Publisher: Hart Publishing. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1960. Page Number: v.

TO HAROLD H. HART
I hope you will get as much credit (or blame) for this book as I will. You have acted, not as a publisher, but as a be- liever in what Summerhill has done and is doing.
Your patience has amazed me. To sort out thousands of words from four of my earlier books, to edit them and combine them with new material--this has been a formidable task.
In your visits to the school, you showed that your chief concern was to tell America about something you saw and loved and believed in. Here you were part of the school. You saw all the fundamentals and rightly ignored what did not matter, for example, the untidiness of happy children.
I hereby elect you an honorary pupil of Summerhill.
A. S. Neill

A Foreword by Erich Fromm

I
During the eighteenth century, the ideas of freedom, democracy, and self-determination were proclaimed by progressive thinkers; and by the first half of the 1900's these ideas came to fruition in the field of education. The basic principle of such self-determina- tion was the replacement of authority by freedom, to teach the child without the use of force by appealing to his curiosity and spontaneous needs, and thus to get him interested in the world around him. This attitude marked the beginning of progressive education and was an important step in human development.
But the results of this new method were often disappointing. In recent years, an increasing reaction against progressive educa- tion has set in. Today, many people believe the theory itself erroneous and that it should be thrown overboard. There is a strong movement afoot for more and more discipline, and even a campaign to permit physical punishment of pupils by public school teachers.
Perhaps the most important factor in this reaction is the re- markable success in teaching achieved in the Soviet Union. There the old-fashioned methods of authoritarianism are applied in full strength; and the results, as far as knowledge is concerned, seem to indicate that we had better revert to the old disciplines and forget about the freedom of the child.
Is the idea of education without force wrong? Even if the idea itself is not wrong, how can we explain its relative failure?
I believe the idea of freedom for children was not wrong, but the idea of freedom has almost always been perverted. To discuss
-ix-
this matter clearly we must first understand the nature of free- dom; and to do this we must differentiate between overt authority and anonymous authority. *
Overt authority is exercised directly and explicitly. The person in authority frankly tells the one who is subject to him, "You must do this. If you do not, certain sanctions will be applied against you." Anonymous authority tends to hide that force is be- ing used. Anonymous authority pretends that there is no author- ity, that all is done with the consent of the individual. While the teacher of the past said to Johnny, "You must do this. If you don't, I'll punish you"; today's teacher says, "I'm sure you'll like to do this." Here, the sanction for disobedience is not corporal punishment, but the suffering face of the parent, or what is worse, conveying the feeling of not being "adjusted," of not acting as the crowd acts. Overt authority used physical force; anonymous authority employs psychic manipulation.
The change from the overt authority of the nineteenth cen- tury to the anonymous authority of the twentieth was deter- mined by the organizational needs of our modern industrial society. The concentration of capital led to the formation of giant enterprises managed by hierarchically organized bureauc- racies. Large conglomerations of workers and clerks work to- gether, each individual a part of a vast organized production machine, which in order to run at all, must run smoothly and without interruption. The individual worker becomes merely a cog in this machine. In such a production organization, the individual is managed and manipulated.
And in the sphere of consumption (in which the individual allegedly expresses his free choice) he is likewise managed and manipulated. Whether it be the consumption of food, clothing, liquor, cigarettes, movies or television programs, a powerful sug-
____________________
*
A more detailed analysis of the problem of authority can be found in E. Fromm, Escape from Freedom, Rinehart and Co. Inc., New York, 1941.
-x
gestion apparatus is at work with two purposes: first, to con- stantly increase the individual's appetite for new commodities; and secondly, to direct these appetites into the channels most profitable for industry. Man is transformed into the consumer, the eternal suckling, whose one wish is to consume more and "better" things.
Our economic system must create men who fit its needs; men who cooperate smoothly; men who want to consume more and more. Our system must create men whose tastes are standardized, men who can be easily influenced, men whose needs can be anticipated. Our system needs men who feel free and inde- pendent but who are nevertheless willing to do what is expected of them, men who will fit into the social machine without fric- tion, who can be guided without force, who can be led without leaders, and who can be directed without any aim except the one to "make good." * It is not that authority has disappeared, nor even that it has lost in strength, but that it has been transformed from the overt authority of force to the anonymous authority of persuasion and suggestion. In other words, in order to be adapt- able, modern man is obliged to nourish the illusion that every- thing is done with his consent, even though such consent be extracted from him by subtle manipulation. His consent is ob- tained, as it were, behind his back, or behind his consciousness.
The same artifices are employed in progressive education. The child is forced to swallow the pill, but the pill is given a sugar coating. Parents and teachers have confused true nonauthori- tarian education with education by means of persuasion and hidden coercion. Progressive education has been thus debased. It has failed to become what it was intended to be and has never developed as it was meant to.
____________________
*
For a more detailed analysis of the influence of our industrial system on the character structure of the individual, see E. Fromm, The Sane Society, Rinehart and Co. Inc., New York, 1955.
-xi-
II
A. S. Neill's system is a radical approach to child rearing. In my opinion, his book is of great importance because it represents the true principle of education without fear. In Summerhill School authority does not mask a system of manipulation. Summerhill does not expound a theory; it relates the actual experience of almost 40 years. The author contends that "free- dom works."The principles underlying Neill's system are presented in this book simply and unequivocally. They are these in summary.
1.
Neill maintains a firm faith "in the goodness of the child." He believes that the average child is not born a cripple, a coward, or a soulless automaton, but has full potentialities to love life and to be interested in life.
2.
The aim of education--in fact the aim of life--is to work joyfully and to find happiness. Happiness, according to Neill, means being interested in life; or as I would put it, responding to life not just with one's brain but with one's whole personality.
3.
In education, intellectual development is not enough. Edu- cation must be both intellectual and emotional. In modern society we find an increasing separation between intellect and feeling. The experiences of man today are mainly experiences of thought rather than an immediate grasp of what his heart feels, his eyes see, and his ears hear. In fact, this separation between intellect and feeling has led modern man to a near schizoid state of mind in which he has become almost incapable of experiencing anything except in thought.
4.
Education must be geared to the psychic needs and capaci- ties of the child. The child is not an altruist. He does not yet love in the sense of the mature love of an adult. It is an error to expect something from a child which he can show only in a
hypocritical way. Altruism develops after childhood.
-xii
5.
Discipline, dogmatically imposed, and punishment create fear; and fear creates hostility. This hostility may not be con- scious and overt, but it nevertheless paralyzes endeavor and authenticity of feeling. The extensive disciplining of children is harmful and thwarts sound psychic development.

6. Freedom does not mean license. This very important prin- ciple, emphasized by Neill, is that respect for the individual must be mutual. A teacher does not use force against a child, nor has a child the right to use force against a teacher. A child may not intrude upon an adult just because he is a child, nor may a child
use pressure in the many ways in which a child can.

7. Closely related to this principle is the need for true sincerity on the part of the teacher. The author says that never in the 40 years of his work in Summerhill has he lied to a child. Anyone who reads this book will be convinced that this statement, which might sound like boasting, is the simple truth.

8. Healthy human development makes it necessary that a child eventually cut the primary ties which connect him with his father and mother, or with later substitutes in society, and that he become truly independent. He must learn to face the world as an individual. He must learn to find his security not in any symbiotic attachment, but in his capacity to grasp the world intellectually, emotionally, artistically. He must use all his powers to find union with the world, rather than to find security through submission or domination.

9. Guilt feelings primarily have the function of binding the child to authority. Guilt feelings are an impediment to inde- pendence; they start a cycle which oscillates constantly between rebellion, repentance, submission, and new rebellion. Guilt, as it is felt by most people in our society, is not primarily a reaction
to the voice of conscience, but essentially an awareness of dis- obedience against authority and fear of reprisal. It does not matter whether such punishment is physical or a withdrawal of love, or whether one simply is made to feel an outsider. All such guilt feelings create fear; and fear breeds hostility and hypocrisy.

10. Summerhill School does not offer religious education. This, however, does not mean that Summerhill is not concerned with what might be loosely called the basic humanistic values. Neill puts it succinctly: "The battle is not between believers in theology and nonbelievers in theology; it is between believers in human freedom and believers in the suppression of human freedom." The author continues, "Some day a new generation will not accept the obsolete religion and myths of today. When the new religion comes, it will refute the idea of man's being born in sin. A new religion will praise God by making men happy."

Neill is a critic of present-day society. He emphasizes that the kind of person we develop is a mass-man. "We are living in an insane society" and "most of our religious practices are sham." Quite logically, the author is an internationalist, and holds a firm and uncompromising position that readiness for war is a barbaric atavism of the human race.
Indeed, Neill does not try to educate children to fit well into the existing order, but endeavors to rear children who will be- come happy human beings, men and women whose values are not to have much, not to use much, but to be much. Neill is a realist; he can see that even though the children he educates will not necessarily be extremely successful in the worldly sense, they will have acquired a sense of genuineness which will effec- tually prevent their becoming misfits or starving beggars. The author has made a decision between full human development

-xiv
and full market-place success--and he is uncompromisingly honest in the way he pursues the road to his chosen goal.
III
Reading this book, I have felt greatly stimulated and encouraged. I hope many other readers will. This is not to say that I agree with every statement the author makes. Certainly most readers will not read this book as if it were the Gospel, and I am sure that the author, least of all, would want this to happen.
I might indicate two of my main reservations. I feel that Neill somewhat underestimates the importance, pleasure, and authen- ticity of an intellectual in favor of an artistic and emotional grasp of the world. Furthermore, the author is steeped in the assump- tions of Freud; and as I see it, he somewhat overestimates the significance of sex, as Freudians tend to do. Yet I retain the im- pression that the author is a man with such realism, and such a genuine grasp of what goes on in a child, that these criticisms refer more to some of his formulations than to his actual ap- proach to the child.
I stress the word "realism" because what strikes me most in the author's approach is his capacity to see, to discern fact from fiction, not to indulge in the rationalizations and illusions by which most people live, and by which they block authentic experience.
Neill is a man with a kind of courage rare today, the courage to believe in what he sees, and to combine realism with an unshakable faith in reason and love. He maintains an uncom- promising reverence for life, and a respect for the individual. He is an experimenter and an observer, not a dogmatist who has an egotistic stake in what he is doing. He mixes education with therapy, but for him therapy is not a separate matter to solve some special "problems," but simply the process of demon- strating to the child that life is there to be grasped, and not to
-xv
run away from.
It will be clear to the reader that the experiment about which this book reports is necessarily one which cannot be repeated many times in our present-day society. This is so not only be- cause it depends on being carried out by an extraordinary per- son like Neill, but also because few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children's happiness than for their "success." But this fact by no means diminishes the significance of this book.
Even though no school like Summerhill exists in the United States today, any parent can profit by reading this book. These chapters will challenge him to rethink his own approach to his child. He will find that Neill's way of handling children is quite different from what most people sneeringly brush aside as "permissive." Neill's insistence on a certain balance in the child-parent relationship--freedom without license--is the kind of thinking that can radically change home attitudes.
The thoughtful parent will be shocked to realize the extent of pressure and power that he is unwittingly using against the child. This book should provide new meanings for the words love, approval, freedom.
Neill shows uncompromising respect for life and freedom and a radical negation of the use of force. Children reared by such methods will develop within themselves the qualities of reason, love, integrity, and courage, which are the goals of the Western humanistic tradition.
If it can happen once in Summerhill, it can happen every- where--once the people are ready for it. Indeed there are no problem children as the author says, but only "problem parents" and a "problem humanity." I believe Neill's work is a seed which will germinate. In time, his ideas will become generally recog- nized in a new society in which man himself and his unfolding are the supreme aim of all social effort.
-xvi
Contents

Foreword by Erich Fromm
ix

A Word of Introduction by the Author
xxiii

I. SUMMERHILL SCHOOL

The Idea of Summerhill
3

A Look at Summerhill
13

Summerhill Education vs. Standard Education
24

What Happens to Summerhill Graduates
29

Private Lessons at Summerhill
35

Self-Government
45

Coeducation
56

Work
59

Play
62

Theater
66

Dancing and Music
71

Sports and Games
73

Report of the British Government Inspectors
75

Notes on His Majesty's Inspectors' Report
86

The Future of Summerhill
89
-xvii

II. CHILD REARING

The Unfree Child
95

The Free Child
104

Love and Approval
117

Fear
124

Inferiority and Fantasy
133

Destructiveness
138

Lying
146

Responsibility
152

Obedience and Discipline
155

Rewards and Punishment
162

Defecation and Toilet Training
172

Food
177

Health and Sleep
182

Cleanliness and Clothing
184

Toys
188

Noise
190

Manners
192

Money
198

Humor
200

III. SEX

Sex Attitudes
205

Sex Instruction
218

Masturbation
223

Nudity
229

Pornography
231

Homosexuality
234

Promiscuity, Illegitimacy, and Abortion
236
-xviii-
IV. RELIGION AND MORALS

Religion
241

Moral Instruction
247

Influencing the Child
255

Swearing and Cursing
259

Censorship
263
V. CHILDREN'S PROBLEMS

Cruelty and Sadism
269

Criminality
272

Stealing
276

Delinquency
282

Curing the Child
289

The Road to Happiness
293

VI. PARENTS' PROBLEMS

Love and Hate
301

Spoiling the Child
306

Power and Authority
309

Jealousy
327

Divorce
323

Parental Anxiety
325

Parental Awareness
331

VII. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

In General
343

About Summerhill
348

About Child Rearing
355

About Sex
370
-xix

About Religion
374

About Psychology
376

About Learning
379

INDEX
380
Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com Publication Information: Book Title: Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing. Contributors: A. S. Neill - author. Publisher: Hart Publishing. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1960. Page Number: xx.

The Creating Brain, by Nancy C. Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D.

2008-11-11T14:55:00.000-08:00

The Creating Brain, by Nancy C. Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D.
www.audible.com

Publisher's Summary
In a fascinating tour of creativity and the brain, Nancy Andreasen, professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa and the winner of the National Medal of Science, explores how the human brain achieves creative breakthroughs--in art, literature, music, and science--the role of genes and environment, extraordinary creativity vs. ordinary creativity, and the question of genius and insanity.
She examines what extraordinary creators have said about creating and how their insights reflect particular qualities of creative people, and she includes her fascinating interview with the playwright Neil Simon, in which he described how his mind and brain work. This book offers insight into what creates the creative brain as well as advice to nurture creativity in both children and adults.
©2005 Nancy C. Andreasen; (P)2008 Dana Press

About the author

Nancy C. Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D., is Andrew H. Woods Chair of Psychiatry and Director of its Neuroimaging Research Center and the Mental Health Clinical Research Center at The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.
She is a prominent neuroscientist and psychiatrist. Throughout her career she has successfully integrated interests in the arts and sciences. Her Ph.D. is in English literature, with specialization in Renaissance literature. Her first book was "John Donne: Conservative Revolutionary." After spending five years as an English professor, she changed fields, attended medical school, and began her career as a physician-neuroscientist.
Her research spans multiple topics, including creativity, spirituality, neuroimaging, genomics, and the natural history and neural mechanisms of schizophrenia. Her career has been marked by many "firsts": the first quantitative Magnetic Resonance (MR) study of schizophrenia; development of the first scales to measure the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia; the first modern empirical study of creativity that examined familial and environmental factors, cognition, and relationship with mental illness; and the first study to combine genomic techniques with neuroimaging techniques.
She has also contributed to the area of psychiatric diagnosis by serving on both the DSM III and DSM IV Task Forces. She was responsible for building the foundations for the study of stress disorders by writing the definition of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for DSM III.
She is past president of the American Psychopathological Association and the Psychiatric Research Society. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science and was elected to serve on its governing council for two four year terms. She is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Society for Neuroscience.
She was awarded the President’s National Medal of Science in 2000. She has also received many other awards, including the Interbrew-Baillet-Latour Prize from the Belgian government, the Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat Prize from the Institute of Medicine, the Lieber Prize for Outstanding Schizophrenia Research, the Sigmund Freud Award from the American College of Psychoanalysis, the Kolb Award and the Sachar Award from Columbia University. The American Psychiatric Association has awarded her its Prize for Research, its Kempf Award for Mentoring, the Hibbs Award, it Adolph Meyer Award, and its Distinguished Service Award. She has received the Stanley Dean Award from The American College of Psychiatrists, as well as its Distinguished Service Award. Most recently, Dr. Andreasen won the Vanderbilt Prize for Biological Science and Mentoring. She was Editor-in-Chief of The American Journal of Psychiatry for 13 years, completing her third term in 2005.
She has written a three widely-praised books for the general public: “The Broken Brain: The Biological Revolution in Psychiatry” (1983), “Brave New Brain: Conquering Mental Illness in the Era of the Genome” (2001), and “The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius” (2005). She has also authored, co-authored, or edited twelve other scholarly books and over 500 articles.
She is the mother of two daughters, Suz Andreasen and Robin Andreasen. Suz is a jewelry designer who lives in New York City, and Robin is a professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Delaware. She is married to Captain Terry Gwinn, a retired military officer who flew helicopter gunships for 3.5 tours in Viet Nam. She enjoys traveling, snorkeling and scuba diving, history, archeology, reading, writing, art, and music.
Dr. Andreasen received the National Medal of Science from President Bill Clinton
http://www.amacad.org/news/andreasen.aspxhttp://iowa-mhcrc.psychiatry.uiowa.edu/mhcrc/IPLpages/altSoft.htm

The Culture Code - Clotaire Rapaille www.audible.com

2008-10-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

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EXCERPTS
Introduction Chapter Two Chapter Ten
Introduction
The Culture Code is the unconscious meaning we apply to any given thing — a car, a type of food, a relationship, even a country — via the culture in which we are raised. The American experience with Jeeps is very different from the French and German experience because our cultures evolved differently (we have strong cultural memories of the open frontier; the French and Germans have strong cultural memories of occupation and war). Therefore, the Codes — the meaning we give to the Jeep at an unconscious level — are different as well. The reasons for this are numerous (and I will describe them in the next chapter), but it all comes down to the worlds in which we grew up. It is obvious to everyone that cultures are different from one another. What most people don’t realize, however, is that these differences actually lead to our processing the same information in different ways.
My journey toward the discovery of cultural codes began in the early 1970’s. I was a psychoanalyst in Paris at the time, and my clinical work brought me to the research of the great scientist Henri Laborit, who drew a clear connection between learning and emotion, showing that without the latter the former was impossible. The stronger the emotion, the more clearly an experience is learned. Think of a child told by his parents to avoid a hot pan on a stove. This concept is abstract to the child until he reaches out, touches the pan, and it burns him. In this intensely emotional moment of pain, the child learns what “hot” and “burn” means and is very unlikely ever to forget it.
The combination of the experience and its accompanying emotion create something known widely (and coined as such by Konrad Lorenz) as an imprint. Once an imprint occurs, it strongly conditions our thought processes and shapes our future actions. Each imprint helps make us more of who we are. The combination of these imprints defines us.
One of my most memorable personal imprints came when I was a young boy. I grew up in France, and when I was about four years old, my family received an invitation to a wedding. I’d never been to one before and I had no idea what to expect. What I encountered was remarkable. French weddings are unlike weddings in any other culture I know. The event went on for two days, nearly all of which was spent around a large communal table. People stood at the table to offer toasts. They stood on the table to sing songs. They slept under the table and (as I later learned) even seduced one another under the table. Food was always available. People drank le trou Normand, a glass of Calvados that allowed them to make room for more food. Others simply went to the bathroom to vomit so they could eat more. It was an amazing thing to see as a child and it left a permanent imprint on me. Forever more, I would always associate weddings with gustatory excess. In fact, the first time I went to a wedding in America, I was taken aback by how sedate it was in comparison. Recently, when I remarried, my wife (who also grew up in France) and I held the kind of multi-day feast that meant “wedding” to both of us.
Every imprint influences us on an unconscious level. When the work of Laborit crystallized this for me, I began to incorporate what I learned from him into my clinical work in Paris, most of which was being done with autistic children (in fact, Laborit led me to the theory that autistic children do not learn effectively because they lack the emotion to do so). The subject of imprinting also formed the foundation of the lectures I gave during this time. After one particular lecture at Geneva University, the father of a student approached me.
“Dr. Rapaille, I might have a client for you,” he said.
Always intrigued at the possibilities offered by another case, I nodded with interest. “An autistic child?”
“No,” he said, smiling, “Nestlé.”
At the time, focused on clinical and scholarly work, I barely understood what the word “marketing” meant. I therefore couldn’t possibly imagine what use I would be to a corporation. “Nestlé? What can I do for them?”
“We are trying to sell instant coffee in Japan, but we aren’t having as much success as we would like. Your work on imprints might be very helpful to us.”
We continued to talk and the man made me an extremely attractive offer. Not only were the financial terms considerable, but there was something promising about a project like this. Unlike my work with autistic children, where progress was painfully slow, this offer was a chance to quickly test theories I had developed about imprinting and the unconscious mind. It was an opportunity too good to pass up. I took a sabbatical and went off on my new assignment.
My first meeting with Nestlé executives and their Japanese advertising agency was very instructive. Their strategy, which today seems absurdly wrong but wasn’t as clear-cut in the ‘70s, was to try to convince Japanese consumers to switch from tea to coffee. Having spent some time in Japan previously, I knew that tea meant a great deal to this culture, but I had no sense of what emotions they attached to coffee. I decided to gather several groups of people together to discover how they imprinted the beverage. I believed there was a message there that could open a door for Nestlé.
I structured a three-hour session with each of the groups. In the first hour, I took on the persona of a visitor from another planet, someone who had never seen coffee before and had no idea how one “used” it. I asked for help understanding the product, believing their descriptions would give me insight into what they thought of it.
In the next hour, I had them sit on the floor like elementary school children and use scissors and a pile of magazines to make a collage of words about coffee. The goal here was to get them to tell me stories with these words that would offer me further clues.
In the third hour, I had participants lie on the floor with pillows. There was some hesitation among members of every group, but I convinced them I wasn’t entirely out of my mind. I put on soothing music and asked the participants to relax. What I was doing was calming their active brain waves, getting them to that tranquil point just before sleep. When they reached this state, I took them on a journey back from their adulthood, past their teenage years, to a time when they were very young. Once they arrived, I asked them to think again about coffee and to recall their earliest memory of it, the first time they consciously experienced it and, if it was different, their most significant memory of it.
I designed this process to bring participants back to their first imprint of coffee and the emotion attached to it. In most cases, though, the journey led nowhere. What this signified for Nestlé was very clear. While the Japanese had an extremely strong emotional connection to tea (something I learned without asking in the first hour of the sessions), they had at the most a very superficial imprint of coffee. Most, in fact, had no imprint of coffee at all.
Under these circumstances, Nestlé’s strategy of getting these consumers to switch from tea to coffee could only fail. Coffee could not compete with tea in the Japanese culture if it had such weak emotional resonance. Instead, if Nestlé was going to have any success in this market at all, they needed to start at the beginning. They needed to give the product meaning in this culture. They needed to create an imprint for coffee for the Japanese.
Armed with this information, Nestlé devised a new strategy. Rather than selling instant coffee to a country dedicated to tea, they created desserts for children infused with the flavor of coffee but without the caffeine. The younger generation embraced these desserts. Their first imprint of coffee was a very positive one, one they would carry throughout their lives. Through this, Nestlé gained a meaningful foothold in the Japanese market. Understanding the process of imprinting — and how it related directly to Nestlé’s marketing efforts — unlocked a door to the Japanese culture for them and turned around a floundering business venture.
It did something much more important for me, however. The realization that there was no significant imprint for coffee in Japan underscored for me that early imprinting has a tremendous impact on why people do what they do. In addition, the fact that the Japanese did not have a strong imprint for coffee while the Swiss (Nestlé is a Swiss company) obviously did made it clear that imprints vary from culture to culture. If I could get to the source of these imprints — if I could somehow “decode” elements of culture to discover the emotions and meanings attached to them — I would learn a great deal about human behavior and how it varies across the planet. This set me on the course of my life’s work. I went off in search of the codes hidden within the unconscious of every culture.
Chapter Two
As you will learn throughout this book, the American culture exhibits many of the traits consistent with adolescence: intense focus on “the now,” dramatic mood swings, constant need for exploration and challenge to authority, a fascination with extremes, openness to change and reinvention, and a strong belief that mistakes warrant second chances. As Americans, we feel we know more than our elders do (for instance, we rarely consult France, Germany, Russia, or England on our foreign policy), that their answers are out of date (we pay little heed to the opinions of these cultures when it comes to global matters), and that we must reject their lessons and re-make the world (few of us — including many of our leaders — are students of world history, choosing to make our own mistakes rather than learning from the mistakes these other cultures have already made).
Like all adolescents, we are preoccupied with love, seduction, and sex. We are not unique in this regard. People in many cultures throughout the world are fascinated with these things — perhaps more so than anything else. After all, as human beings, we need sex at the very least to ensure the continuation of our species. The unconscious attitudes we Americans hold about these matters, however, are unique and very much related to our cultural adolescence.
Adolescence is a time of confusion and contradictions. New discoveries are promising one day and disappointing the next. Dreams sprout, flower, and wilt as quickly as daffodils in the spring. Certainties become uncertainties in the blink of an eye. This is as true with adolescent cultures as it is with adolescent children and never is it clearer than in the Codes revealed in this chapter.
Some of you will find the following pages disturbing. Some of you will insist that you don’t see yourself in these Codes in any way. (You might even be right about that. Of course, every individual is different, as he or she is also governed by his or her individual unconscious.) The revelation of the following Codes might be upsetting to you, but please remember that Codes are value-neutral. The Codes themselves do not pass judgment on a particular culture. The American Codes simply reflect our cultural adolescence. This is very good and empowering in many cases, as you will see in subsequent chapters, and explains why we are the best in the world at many things and why we have been such innovators and reformers.
If one were to compile a list of things at which the American culture excels, however, love, seduction, and sex would not be on that list. You know this already. After all, when we consider someone a great ladies’ man, we might call him a “Don Juan” or a “Casanova.” We will never, however, call him a “Joe Smith.” The function of the new set of glasses provided by the Culture Code is to show us why we do the things we do:
Why are American women so concerned with finding “Mr. Right?”
Why does the FCC frown on (and even prosecute) televising a woman breastfeeding, but allow the exhibition of fictionalized bloodbaths during network Prime Time?
Why are American women offended when construction workers whistle at them in New York but flattered when a man does the same in Milan?
The answers are in the Codes.
What’s love got to do with it?
I held imprinting sessions all over the country searching for the Code for love. During these sessions, I asked participants to focus on the word “love” without specifying whether I meant romantic love, parental love, sibling love, love of country, love of pets, or even love of a sports team. When I guided participants back to their first imprint though, a vast majority of them went to the same place.
“My first experience with the word love, or related to love, was when I was four or five. In the kitchen, mother was preparing a cake, my favorite cake, a cheesecake. The smell was the smell of love. She opened the oven and I told her, ‘I love you!’ She closed the oven, came to give me a kiss, and told me, ‘I love you, too.’ Then she gave me a big portion of the cake and I knew she really meant it when she said, ‘I love you’.”-- 40-year-old man
“Mother loved us so much, she cooked all Thanksgiving day. She was so happy to see her family all together again, around the table, eating…so much love around the table, so much food. We could not stop eating.”-- 36-year-old woman
“When you are little, parents are there to care for and protect you. You have no care or worries. If something bad happens, your family is there for you. I miss this protection.”-- 58-year-old woman
“The best way to describe my parents’ room is a nest. The carpet was light brown and the walls were blue. The bed was in the center of the room and had a huge white comforter. It was on this bed that I sat with my mother as a child and asked her about the world.”-- 21-year-old man
“I remember lying in my mother’s lap in my early years. I remember talking with my mother and sharing caresses.”-- 65-year-old man
Consistently, participants related their first experience of love to their mother’s care — feeding them, holding them, making them feel safe. This is entirely understandable. After all, for nine months, our mothers provide us with the most perfect “resort hotel” imaginable. The room service is first-rate and available immediately upon demand, the space is neither too hot nor too cold, transportation is free, and there’s even a musical backdrop (her heartbeat) for entertainment. And even though we ultimately must leave this vacation paradise, our mothers are there for us to guide us through the transition, feeding us with their bodies, keeping us coddled and warm, taking us out to see the world, and providing numerous ways for us to occupy our time and delight in the act of learning.
The nature of these responses was very consistent with the thinking of an adolescent culture. Adolescents, after all, flit from pressing for independence to acting like children throughout this period of their lives. When in the latter mode, they seek the succor (inwardly if not outwardly) of their mothers, the safe harbor provided by that all-encompassing love.
Then there is the former mode, the mode that demands a rejection of home and the right to make one’s own mistakes. When I asked participants to recall their most powerful memories of love, different stories emerged.
“I went to college. I was so happy. Free at last. But it did not go so well. First time I started drinking, I could not stop. Then I don’t know what happened next, I was so sick. None of the boys who were after me the night before were there to help me.”-- 50-year-old woman
“I was 13 and I liked a boy but he liked someone else. This taught me a big lesson because I thought that I was prettier than her and she was fat, but I was spoiled and sometimes mean.” -- 24-year-old woman
“My most powerful experience is when my parents decided to separate. I found out eavesdropping on their discussions late at night. Things were tense, but everyone wanted to be normal.”-- 37-year-old man
“I have an image of a white beautiful horse and a blonde beautiful woman in a flowing crepe-like dress with a lush green forest and waterfall and a handsome man meeting and embracing her. I long to be that woman.”-- 38-year-old woman
This was a different component of the adolescent experience: the part where experimentation leads to exhilaration and disappointment, to success and failure. The vast majority of these stories expressed some level of discomfort, of uneasiness with the events described, much in the way an adolescent describes experiences he doesn’t like and doesn’t understand. Remember, these stories were about the most powerful memory of love.
Perhaps the most significant element of the adolescent experience, however, is the loss of innocence. There comes a point in every adolescent’s life when he realizes his ideals aren’t as gilded as they once seemed. This realization usually leads to new maturity and the acquisition of new coping tools. It also often comes, though, with a sense of disillusionment. When participants wrote of their most recent memory of love, they repeatedly told the story of lost ideals.
“I know what boys want. They say they love you, but I know what they want.”-- A 35-year-old woman
“I have three children from three different fathers who died in drive-by shootings. Before I die, I want once again to have a baby, to feed him, to love him, and to be loved unconditionally.”-- A 15-year old woman
“I purchased a diamond for my girlfriend. I recall her taking it off in the car while we were arguing and I became infuriated. I took the ring and threw it out the window. I told her since it meant so little to her I threw it away.”-- 31-year-old man
These three sets of stories — the first imprint, the most powerful memory, and the most recent memory — revealed a distinctly American pattern. Participants spoke repeatedly about the desire for love, the need for love, the belief in something called “True Love,” but they also spoke consistently about being disappointed in this quest. A very large percentage of the “most recent memory” stories spoke of loss, bitterness, and sadness. When it comes to love, Americans — regardless of their ages — view love the way an adolescent views the world: as an exciting dream that rarely reaches fulfillment.
The American Culture Code for love is FALSE EXPECTATION.
Without question, losing at love is an international experience. Even in cultures where marriages are arranged and courtship is rare, there are tales of forbidden love and the sad consequences when that love dies. In older cultures, though — ones that passed through adolescence centuries ago — the unconscious message about the expectations for love are very different.
In France, the concepts of love and pleasure are intertwined. The French consider the notions of true love and “Mr. Right” irrelevant. The refinement of pleasure is paramount and romance is a highly sophisticated process. Love means helping your partner achieve as much pleasure as possible, even if this requires finding someone else to provide some of this pleasure. French couples can of course be devoted to one another, but their definition of devotion differs greatly from the American definition (fidelity, for instance, is not paramount) and their expectations are set accordingly.
The Italians believe that life is a comedy rather than a tragedy and that one should laugh whenever possible. They expect love to contain strong dimensions of pleasure, beauty, and, above all, fun. If love becomes too dramatic or too hard, it is unsatisfying. The Italian culture centers very strongly on family and Italians put their mothers up on pedestals. To them, true love is maternal love. Therefore, their expectations for romantic love are lower. Men romance women, but seek true love from their mothers. Women believe that the best way to express and experience love is by becoming mothers. A man is “Mr. Right” as long as he provides a child.
The Japanese offer perhaps the best illustration of the differences in attitudes toward love between an adolescent culture and an older culture. Japanese men and women often ask me to describe how westerners marry. I tell them that a young man meets a young woman (often one younger than he is himself) and they begin the process of getting to know one another. If he happens to fall deeply in love, the man will ask the woman to marry him, and if she loves him as well, she will say yes. (Obviously, it’s more complicated that this in practice, but I get the main points across this way.)
Stunned expressions always meet this description. “The man is young?” the Japanese questioner will say. “If he is young, how can he possibly have enough experience to make a decision of this type? Only his parents can know what kind of marriage is appropriate for him and will allow him to raise the best family. And you say the woman is younger. That means she is even less experienced than he is!”
They save their greatest contempt, though, for the notion that westerners marry for love. “Love is a temporary disease,” they tell me. “It is foolish to base something as important as the creation of a family on something so temporary.” This is still the prevalent sensibility in Japan today, even though the “content” of the Japanese culture has changed. While Japanese teens might date more often than their parents did and might spend more time meeting up at clubs, most marriages are still arranged, and few have anything to do with romance. While this all might sound terribly harsh to American ears, there is at least some logic in this sentiment. While nearly half of all American marriages end in divorce, the Japanese divorce rate is less than 2%.
This is not to suggest that older cultures automatically have a clearer vision of the world. In fact, as you will see over the course of this book, there are many instances where the “adolescent” approach is the more effective one. When it comes to love, however, it is obvious that the American culture is currently in an uneasy place. A woman searches for “Mr. Right” because she believes the stories she reads in books or watches at the movies, finds someone she believes she can “change” into her ideal man, and disappointedly sees her efforts fail. A man searches for “Ms. Perfect” for many of the same reasons, finds a woman who excites him, believes it will stay this way forever, and becomes disappointed when motherhood takes her interests elsewhere.
This quest for perfection is, of course, on Code — our cultural unconscious compels us to have unrealistically high standards for love. However, as that 50% divorce rate indicates, the Code isn’t making our lives easier. Here is a case where an understanding of the Code can help those frustrated by love to go off Code in a productive manner. If you realize your unconscious expects you to fail, you can begin to look at love with more sensible goals. While understanding and respecting the tug to find “Mr. Right” or “Ms. Perfect,” one can look for someone who can be a partner, a friend, and a caring lover who can’t possibly fulfill all of one’s needs.
A prominent diamond company deals with the Code in a distinctive fashion. One component of its marketing focuses on the “false expectations” the American subconscious feels about love: its ads feature couples using diamonds to profess their forever love or to confirm their commitment after years together. Another component of its marketing, however, deals with the consequences of false expectations in a clever manner: highlighting the investment and re-sale value of diamonds. Both campaigns are strongly on Code, addressing our undying belief in the permanence of romantic love and providing a useful benefit when that belief fails to pan out.
Chapter Ten
The German Code for Germany is perhaps best illustrated in a story.
Lego, the Danish toy company, found instant success with their interlocking blocks in the German market, while sales foundered in the U.S. Why?
The company’s management believed that one of the primary reasons for their success was the quality of the instructions they provided inside each box that helped children build the specific item (a car, a spaceship) that a particular box of blocks was meant to build. The instructions were quite a breakthrough in the field: precise, colorful, and refreshingly self-explanatory. They made construction with Lego blocks not only simple, but in some ways magical. If one followed the path through the instructions, tiny plastic pieces methodically turned into something grander.
American children could not have cared less. They would tear into the boxes, glance fleetingly at the instructions (if they glanced at them at all), and immediately set to a construction project on their own. They seemed to be having a wonderful time, but they were as likely to build, say, a fort, as they were to build the automobile for which the blocks were intended. And when they were done, they would tear their fort apart and start over from scratch. Once purchased, to Lego’s dismay, a single box of Lego could last for years.
In Germany, however, Lego’s strategy worked exactly as intended. German children opened a box of Legos, sought out the instructions, read them carefully, and then sorted the pieces by color. They set to building, comparing their assembly progress to the crisp, helpful illustrations in the instruction booklet. When they were finished, they had an exact duplicate of the product shown on the cover of the box. They showed it to Mother who clapped approvingly and put the model on a shelf. Now the children needed another box.
Without even knowing it, Lego had tapped into the Culture Code for Germany itself: ORDER. Over many generations, Germans perfected bureaucracy in an effort to stave off the chaos that came to them in wave after wave, and Germans are imprinted early on with this most powerful of codes. It is that imprint which makes children reach dutifully for the instructions, and it is that code which prevents them from immediately destroying their neat construction in order to build it anew. Lego’s elegant, full-color instructions had tapped into the German code in a way that assured repeat sales.
Excerpted from The Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille Copyright © 2006 by Clotaire Rapaille. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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