According to the story, in a survey taken several years ago, all incoming freshman at MIT were asked if they expected to graduate in the top half of their class. Ninety-seven percent responded that they did.
And another piece of research in 1989 compared mathematical competence in students in eight different countries. Korean students ranked the highest in mathematical skills, while those in the United States had the lowest rating. Yet the American students had the highest overall opinion of their ability, while the Koreans who had the best results had the lowest opinion of how they had done.
Most of us believe ourselves to be to be above average compared with most other people: better drivers, better at evaluating character, more ethical and capable. Indeed when people begin to feel that they are below average that alone can lead to a referral to a psychologist, for it may be a sign of depression or some other disorder.
How is it that we are so good at insulating ourselves against reality? That is the core question that Cordelia Fine tries to answer in this, ahem, fine book.
She details - perhaps, at times, over-details - a number of fascinating research studies into the very common problem of self-deception and self-distortion. This is a problem that stretches beyond the confines of academic psychology into psychotherapy, personal and spiritual development, relationships and even politics.
She coins a nice term - our "Vain brain" - to capture the way in which we distort reality about ourselves and the ways in which the brain biases perception to favor the perceiver. It is a commonplace that when things are going well, we tend to attribute our success to our sterling qualities, while failures are more commonly a result of bad luck and trouble, the perfidy of others or that there were other "reasons" that staked the deck against us. Our brains have a remarkable ability to edit our memories and insights in such a way that it can constantly protect us from the truths that surround us.
Cordelia also discusses the way in which the brain warps perceptions to match emotions. She discusses one of the most bizarre things that you will see in clinical practice: the so-called Cotard delusion in which people believe that they, or parts of their bodies, are dead. It most often occurs in psychotic depression in the elderly: the depression drives the thought that they are dead.
One of the things that makes this book interesting is that Cordelia also proposes some ways of dealing with the problems of a self-deception driven by unconscious (? preconscious) processes: recognize and acknowledge your brain's scheming, and become aware of the ways in which your brain and mind play tricks upon you; develop greater self-awareness and work to see the world as it is. Though she does not explicitly say so, this is what spiritual teachers have recommended for millennia.
She also mentions the way in which we can recruit our unconscious processes to fulfill unconscious aspirations. She does not go into very much detail about the "hows" of doing so, and that might be a good topic for her next book.
This is a well-written, entertaining and engaging book that I recommend highly.
Richard G. Petty, MD, author of
Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life
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Popular Highlights in this book
For by calling on powerful biases in memory and reasoning, the brain can selectively edit and censor the truth, both about ourselves and the world, making for a softer, kinder, and altogether more palatable reality.Highlighted by 53 Kindle readers- Even if you are unambiguously hopeless in an area of life, your brain gets around this by simply diminishing the importance of that skill.Highlighted by 52 Kindle readers
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Top reviews from other countries
Raymond
Nous nous croyons des êtres conscients, conscients de nos pensées et de nos actes. Quelle erreur !
Reviewed in France on November 28, 2015Lizzie M
Best book , changes perspective on life.
Reviewed in France on February 27, 2016
YeahYeahNoh
Excellent, Enlightening and Entertaining
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 15, 2014