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Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There
For fans of Thinking Fast and Slow and The Power of Habit , a groundbreaking new study of how disrupting our well-worn routines, both good and bad, can rejuvenate our days and reset our brains to allow us to live happier and more fulfilling lives.
Have you ever noticed that what is thrilling on Monday tends to become boring on Friday? Even exciting relationships, stimulating jobs, and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while. People stop noticing what is most wonderful in their own lives. They also stop noticing what is terrible. They get used to dirty air. They stay in abusive relationships. People grow to accept authoritarianism and take foolish risks. They become unconcerned by their own misconduct, blind to inequality, and are more liable to believe misinformation than ever before.
But what if we could find a way to see everything anew? What if you could regain sensitivity, not only to the great things in your life, but also to the terrible things you stopped noticing and so don’t try to change?
Now, neuroscience professor Tali Sharot and Harvard law professor (and presidential advisor) Cass R. Sunstein investigate why we stop noticing both the great and not-so-great things around us and how to “dishabituate� at the office, in the bedroom, at the store, on social media, and in the voting booth. This groundbreaking work, based on decades of research in the psychological and biological sciences, illuminates how we can reignite the sparks of joy, innovate, and recognize where improvements urgently need to be made. The key to this disruption—to seeing, feeling, and noticing again—is change. By temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people you interact with—or even just stepping back and imagining change—you regain sensitivity, allowing you to more clearly identify the bad and more deeply appreciate the good.
Have you ever noticed that what is thrilling on Monday tends to become boring on Friday? Even exciting relationships, stimulating jobs, and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while. People stop noticing what is most wonderful in their own lives. They also stop noticing what is terrible. They get used to dirty air. They stay in abusive relationships. People grow to accept authoritarianism and take foolish risks. They become unconcerned by their own misconduct, blind to inequality, and are more liable to believe misinformation than ever before.
But what if we could find a way to see everything anew? What if you could regain sensitivity, not only to the great things in your life, but also to the terrible things you stopped noticing and so don’t try to change?
Now, neuroscience professor Tali Sharot and Harvard law professor (and presidential advisor) Cass R. Sunstein investigate why we stop noticing both the great and not-so-great things around us and how to “dishabituate� at the office, in the bedroom, at the store, on social media, and in the voting booth. This groundbreaking work, based on decades of research in the psychological and biological sciences, illuminates how we can reignite the sparks of joy, innovate, and recognize where improvements urgently need to be made. The key to this disruption—to seeing, feeling, and noticing again—is change. By temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people you interact with—or even just stepping back and imagining change—you regain sensitivity, allowing you to more clearly identify the bad and more deeply appreciate the good.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2024
284 people are currently reading
3,276 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 120 reviews
June 5, 2024
I am typically a fan of the work of Cass Sunstein. He's a sharp and clear thinker. Unfortunately, some of the ideas he's championed have not withstood scrutiny over time. I am specifically referring to the literature on "nudges," which appears to essentially be approaching no effect status (see PMID: 35858389). These scientific debates are complex though. Social science research is fraught - saddled with inherent limitations. Subsequently, I don't want to judge him too harshly just because some of his ideas may have been oversold. It's only as the research science develops that some of the limits or faults of a hypothesis become clear.
However, Look Again is an egregious example of "it should have been a long-form essay." The book is concerned with the neurophysiological/psychological phenomenon of habituation. This is the idea that our response to or perception of any given stimuli fades as exposure persists. We have a good understanding of how this is mediated physiologically by the nervous system as well. Sunstein and Sharot take this physiological idea and extend it across the entire psychosocial landscape. They explore the likely weak literature on this which basically suggests that humans are prone to ennui and that we need to shake things up to keep things fresh and exciting.
This is fairly standard self-help pablum. It could have come from Esther Perel rather than social scientists.
There is nothing disastrously wrong or misleading about any of it. In fact, some of the messages are likely useful to a number of young readers, but I don't think the ideas here are enough to justify a book or Sunstein's attention. Given that all the incentives are to write books instead of long-form essays, Sunstein and Sharot should have worked to assemble something more inspired and compelling. I think we've reached a point in pop-sci nonfiction where authors, especially academics with real bonafides, have to move beyond rhetorical approaches akin to Gladwellism, i.e. "the hard sell of a big theme supported by dubious, incoherent but dramatically presented evidence." We want these luminaries to push themselves and audiences alike toward great rigor.
However, Look Again is an egregious example of "it should have been a long-form essay." The book is concerned with the neurophysiological/psychological phenomenon of habituation. This is the idea that our response to or perception of any given stimuli fades as exposure persists. We have a good understanding of how this is mediated physiologically by the nervous system as well. Sunstein and Sharot take this physiological idea and extend it across the entire psychosocial landscape. They explore the likely weak literature on this which basically suggests that humans are prone to ennui and that we need to shake things up to keep things fresh and exciting.
This is fairly standard self-help pablum. It could have come from Esther Perel rather than social scientists.
There is nothing disastrously wrong or misleading about any of it. In fact, some of the messages are likely useful to a number of young readers, but I don't think the ideas here are enough to justify a book or Sunstein's attention. Given that all the incentives are to write books instead of long-form essays, Sunstein and Sharot should have worked to assemble something more inspired and compelling. I think we've reached a point in pop-sci nonfiction where authors, especially academics with real bonafides, have to move beyond rhetorical approaches akin to Gladwellism, i.e. "the hard sell of a big theme supported by dubious, incoherent but dramatically presented evidence." We want these luminaries to push themselves and audiences alike toward great rigor.
March 18, 2024
3.5
This is a book whose main point is obvious, but needs to be made explicit because we’ve become habituated to it (see what I did there?) and take it for granted. Examples are a bit labored at times, and the shoe horning in of the authors� personal stories may grate on some. However, the chapter on authoritarianism is especially salient for our time. While it’s a bit hit and miss overall, this book contains many valuable insights and is definitely worth reading.
This is a book whose main point is obvious, but needs to be made explicit because we’ve become habituated to it (see what I did there?) and take it for granted. Examples are a bit labored at times, and the shoe horning in of the authors� personal stories may grate on some. However, the chapter on authoritarianism is especially salient for our time. While it’s a bit hit and miss overall, this book contains many valuable insights and is definitely worth reading.
February 13, 2024
I really did not enjoy this book.
I struggled with Sharot's writing style, and the actual purpose of this book. What was it trying to do?
It just had so much waffle!
Just didn't get anything from this! Not for me!
I struggled with Sharot's writing style, and the actual purpose of this book. What was it trying to do?
It just had so much waffle!
Just didn't get anything from this! Not for me!
November 23, 2024
Atât de mult m-am regăsit în ceea ce se povestește în această carte.
Știm cu toți că rutina din viața noastră ne poate dăuna și chiar dacă suntem conștienți de acest lucru, tot nu reușim să ieșim din zona de confort. Poate din cauza fricii de necunoscut sau din lene.
De asemenea, ne sunt expuse diverse exemple ale persoanelor care au trecut prin diferite situații și cum au reușit să iasă din ele.
Acomodarea. Oare v-ați întrebat vreodată cât de repede ne acomodăm în anumite situații cărora credem că nu le facem față?
Mi-a plăcut enorm de mult tot ceea ce e descris în carte. Cât de obișnuiți suntem cu anumite lucruri pe care nici măcar nu le mai observăm 🙈
5/5 ⭐️
Știm cu toți că rutina din viața noastră ne poate dăuna și chiar dacă suntem conștienți de acest lucru, tot nu reușim să ieșim din zona de confort. Poate din cauza fricii de necunoscut sau din lene.
De asemenea, ne sunt expuse diverse exemple ale persoanelor care au trecut prin diferite situații și cum au reușit să iasă din ele.
Acomodarea. Oare v-ați întrebat vreodată cât de repede ne acomodăm în anumite situații cărora credem că nu le facem față?
Mi-a plăcut enorm de mult tot ceea ce e descris în carte. Cât de obișnuiți suntem cu anumite lucruri pe care nici măcar nu le mai observăm 🙈
5/5 ⭐️
April 20, 2024
3.5 stars. Interesting principle. We get used to the same experiences and information. We can use that fact strategically. If we have unpleasant tasks or fears, we should expose ourselves to them in a frequent way so that their impact diminishes over time. Conversely, if we want a good experience to last longer or want to pay attention to our particular set of information, we should insert novelty.
For example, if we’re at a nice restaurant, enjoying a beautiful view, we should take a break at times to go to a part of the restaurant that feels cramped and crowded and then return to our table with a nice view so that we don’t get used to our surroundings.
For example, if we’re at a nice restaurant, enjoying a beautiful view, we should take a break at times to go to a part of the restaurant that feels cramped and crowded and then return to our table with a nice view so that we don’t get used to our surroundings.
April 2, 2024
I love, love, LOVE, Tali Sharot and Cass Sunstein books, so I was super excited to found out the just released a book together. This book is all about habituation, and it’s so damn good. It’s a short read, but it discusses how habituation can be used for both good and bad in this world. Habituation happens regardless of whether we want it to or not, but habituation can lead to increases in sexism, racism, and many more bad situations. This book has a ton of studies, and the authors do a great job teaching the reader how to recognize habituation and how to maneuver it to lead a better life.
February 6, 2025
Rutina s-a infiltrat în fiecare aspect al vieții, iar universul tău pare pictat în cenușiu?! Atunci “Privește din nou� este cartea de care ai nevoie! 📖🫶
🔖 Că vrem sau nu să recunoaștem, mulți dintre noi încetăm să mai vedem și să apreciem lucrurile bune din viața noastră.
🔖 Continuăm să funcționăm zilnic pe pilot automat: ne urmăm aceeași rutină de dimineață, mergem pe același traseu la job sau la sală, citim până și aceleași tipuri de cărți refuzând să variem lucrurile. Recunosc, acest ultim aspect mi-am propus să-l schimb anul acesta, dar despre asta, într-o altă postare.
🔖 Misiunea autoarei Tali Sharot ✍️ este de a ne ajuta să privim dintr-un alt unghi lucrurile din jurul nostru, să observăm ceea ce a fost mereu acolo și am ignorat vreme îndelungată, să ieșim din rutină și să ne bucurăm mai mult de viață.
Honestly, i-a ieșit în cel mai fain mod posibil. 🤍 Deși cartea cuprinde multe studii, este scrisă într-un stil lejer și plin de umor, făcându-te să dai pagină după pagină.
Cartea asta nu vorbește doar despre obișnuința noastră cu binele, ci și despre cum acceptăm relativ repede lucrurile îngrozitoare, care devin norma, cum ar fi cruzimea, corupția și discriminarea.
📕 “Privește din nou� este o BOOKurie numai bună de parcurs acum la început de an. O recomand tuturor, dar cu atât mai mult celor care și-au propus să citească mai multă nonficțiune anul acesta. E ceea ce trebuie!
📝 “Când nu putem învăța, ne plictisim și devenim nefericiți.�
📝 “Pentru a trăi viața la maximum avem nevoie să explorăm noul și să îmbrățișăm vechiul.�
🔖 Că vrem sau nu să recunoaștem, mulți dintre noi încetăm să mai vedem și să apreciem lucrurile bune din viața noastră.
🔖 Continuăm să funcționăm zilnic pe pilot automat: ne urmăm aceeași rutină de dimineață, mergem pe același traseu la job sau la sală, citim până și aceleași tipuri de cărți refuzând să variem lucrurile. Recunosc, acest ultim aspect mi-am propus să-l schimb anul acesta, dar despre asta, într-o altă postare.
🔖 Misiunea autoarei Tali Sharot ✍️ este de a ne ajuta să privim dintr-un alt unghi lucrurile din jurul nostru, să observăm ceea ce a fost mereu acolo și am ignorat vreme îndelungată, să ieșim din rutină și să ne bucurăm mai mult de viață.
Honestly, i-a ieșit în cel mai fain mod posibil. 🤍 Deși cartea cuprinde multe studii, este scrisă într-un stil lejer și plin de umor, făcându-te să dai pagină după pagină.
Cartea asta nu vorbește doar despre obișnuința noastră cu binele, ci și despre cum acceptăm relativ repede lucrurile îngrozitoare, care devin norma, cum ar fi cruzimea, corupția și discriminarea.
📕 “Privește din nou� este o BOOKurie numai bună de parcurs acum la început de an. O recomand tuturor, dar cu atât mai mult celor care și-au propus să citească mai multă nonficțiune anul acesta. E ceea ce trebuie!
📝 “Când nu putem învăța, ne plictisim și devenim nefericiți.�
📝 “Pentru a trăi viața la maximum avem nevoie să explorăm noul și să îmbrățișăm vechiul.�
Read
June 25, 2024Finish for my read a book from the 100s block for my 2024 summer reading challenge block
March 21, 2024
Very scientific oriented with lots of stories and ways they brought it back to their personal lives. I researched a few topics like Adaptive preference
August 20, 2024
Listened to this book while in the throws of COVID... and it was a nice distraction. Lots of repetition, so you didn't really miss much while delirious with fever...
November 1, 2024
I expected more from Sharot and Sunstein. The book is entertaining to read, but the content brings little new to the table. It feels more like a selfhelp book and does not shed an in-depth light on the subject. The topic of dishabituation is an interesting one. However, this book could have been an essay for the Sunday edition of a newspaper.
Possibly I am the wrong target for this book. I suppose it might be stimulating when interested but not schooled in social sciences or philosophy.
Possibly I am the wrong target for this book. I suppose it might be stimulating when interested but not schooled in social sciences or philosophy.
December 6, 2024
This one was ok. The authors try to cover a lot of ground, but in my opinion, don't thoroughly develop their ideas. Data was present but limited, a lot of speculation that didn't always seem quite logical. The chapters on creativity and risk were the strongest and deserved more attention.
This is one of those books that is likely to start some conversations, I just don't see it moving the needle on anything intellectually or socially innovative.
This is one of those books that is likely to start some conversations, I just don't see it moving the needle on anything intellectually or socially innovative.
August 1, 2024
interesting parts, but didn’t love it
May 22, 2024
Interesting books around habituation.
December 28, 2024
I devoured Look Again in just a few days—it was absolutely captivating. This book has left a lasting impression on me, and I feel it will influence how I experience life moving forward.
March 1, 2025
Some insights were interesting and helpful, but from one point it has become kind of repetitive.
Read
February 20, 2024“The authors are engaging guides to their field, drawing readers up the scale of seriousness, from wellbeing tips, through modes of believing, via health and safety, to societal risks of unthinking acceptance of evils such as discrimination or evolving fascist regimes�
My Financial Times review
Business books: what to read this month
My Financial Times review
Business books: what to read this month
August 2, 2024
Look Again was one of those prime examples of a self-help book that would have fared better as an article or essay.
There were some interesting facts and teachings here and there, but in all honesty, I don’t think the topics and themes flowed together well. I had so many moments of genuine confusion trying to understand the purpose or overarching lesson Look Again was trying to promote. It hopped around consistently between incredibly unrelated topics, which at times made it feel like a jumbled aggregation of random thoughts and “fun facts� rather than a structured, connected guide.
Unfortunately, I just couldn’t grasp the point or goal of Look Again.
There were some interesting facts and teachings here and there, but in all honesty, I don’t think the topics and themes flowed together well. I had so many moments of genuine confusion trying to understand the purpose or overarching lesson Look Again was trying to promote. It hopped around consistently between incredibly unrelated topics, which at times made it feel like a jumbled aggregation of random thoughts and “fun facts� rather than a structured, connected guide.
Unfortunately, I just couldn’t grasp the point or goal of Look Again.
October 1, 2024
After the first 50 pages, I kept thinking, “But why? What purpose is this serving?�. I am just not sure of the value of what was being discussed, and found it to be scattered and jumbled. Also- do they have stock in VR or something??
September 26, 2024
Not even all the way through but already agreeing that it should have been an essay. An awful lot of repetition that ultimately insults the reader’s intelligence. It is also strangely enamored with capitalism, frequently citing billionaires as positive examples, which makes one wonder “why am I taking life advice from people so out of touch with the everyman?�
February 16, 2024
I quite enjoyed this book, it starts off very engaging, asking questions to get you thinking in more ways than one. I found that this book speaks to you, not at you, and tells you useful information through a story rather than just stating facts. Each section starts with a quote and there’s lots of real life examples which kept me interested throughout. Whilst I wouldn’t read the book again, I’d recommend it to a friend.
Thank you NetGalley, The Bridge Street Press & Little, Brown Book Group for an advanced copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you NetGalley, The Bridge Street Press & Little, Brown Book Group for an advanced copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.
March 27, 2024
Sharot and Sunstein provided an insightful and helpful perspective. I am probably biased in favor of the book because it highlights many things uncovered in my research and things covered in my writings. The perspective provided in their book helps us better understand how and why we do what we do. They note something in the beginning that, if you are like me, I had not paid much attention to it. Specifically, they state, “What is thrilling on Monday becomes boring by Friday.� As they noted later, it is less thrilling because of habituation or the repetition of actions completed. The reputation of action generates less emotional reactions, meaning we respond less over time.
They encourage us to dishabituate because it can help us find better ways and should help us be more alert. Right now if we see what we expect, we cruise through life. We don’t react unless what we experience contradicts what we expect. To support this, they describe how accidents went down, rather than up when Sweden switched overnight from driving on the left side of the road to the right. They noted that this dishabituated people, and due to the change, they focused more and improved safety. This was an example they provided of how things can improve if we shake things up in our lives. Multiple examples are provided about creating experiences that can help us dishabituate.
In a new way, they explain the management saying, “We manage what we measure.� In their terms, they explain that we do not change what we do not see. They use these findings to help us better understand how and why misinformation is believed. A culmination of these ideas describes how habituation enabled Nazi Germany to happen. I thought these profound quotes used in the book captured the concept:
"Every step was so small...one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head." - anonymous German citizen
"We shall become prisoners of culture unless we become aware of the process and force ourselves to confront it." - John Howard
“We humans can adapt to a lot. It is easy to sleepwalk into a state of chronic stress and distraction without ever reflecting that things could be different.� - Tom Hartford
Throughout the book, they provide what, in retrospect, seems obvious. For instance, they point out that habituation is necessary because if we don’t habituate, we may not strive to improve. As is also obvious, we do not habituate to learning because learning, by definition, is change. They also note, as I have noted about wellness in the post Experiencing Wellness = Progress Toward Desired, post () that we strive for progress, not perfection.
To emphasize their push for us to dishabituate, they point out how our habituation has enabled us to live more difficult lives than may be necessary. It is also noted that most accidents happen due to habituation. When we are habituated, less and less focus is used on our actions.
They end by suggesting we must up our game and institute “Progress: Breaking the chains of expectations.� In other words, we should Exceed Expectations (see Exceed Expectations—Updated ()). They explain that we often set low expectations so we don’t experience a negative prediction error. A negative prediction error happens when there is a gap between what we expected and what happened. This, they note, generally may only mean lower happiness for the short term but progress for the long term.
Overall, it is a very good book that captures many common ideas in useful ways. I recommend others read it and are inspired to raise their expectations by shaking things up. I hope this was helpful.
In retrospect, I realized I had written some things as an undergrad in 1988 that focused on these ideas. Let me know if you find these helpful: To Risk & Life's Lessons.
To Risk�
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to appear sentimental.
To reach for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
Placing your ideas and dreams before a crowd risks their loss.
To love is to risk
not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To believe is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The people who risk nothing, do nothing, have nothing, are nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, or live. Chained by their attitudes, they are slaves; they have forfeited
their freedom.
Only a person willing to risk is free.
LIFE'S LESSONS
1. Life teaches you to accept your mistakes as an adult and not to grieve about them as a child.
2. Life teaches you to build your roads today, for tomorrow is uncertain, and yesterday is gone.
3. Most importantly, life teaches you that if you think about yesterday, you will always wonder, "What if?" or "If I'd of only..." so concentrate on today so you never wonder.
If you think about yesterday, you will want to hide
yesterday's outcome because, as they always say,
"hindsight is better than foresight," but remember, you made the best decision you could have in light of the situation; accept your decisions and live!
for today!!!!!
ALWAYS REMEMBER:
What you do TODAY is important because you pay for it with a day of your life, a very high price indeed,
when tomorrow comes, today will be gone forever;
NEVER regret the price you paid for a day!!!!!!!!
ALSO KEEP IN MIND:
It is not a bell 'til you ring it, it is not a song 'til you sing it, and it is not a life 'til you live it!
So, don't worry, BE HAPPY. After all, worry is the most unproductive of all human activities, and if you do worry, you just make it double:
IN CONCLUSION
Learn from your mistakes and go into tomorrow with a smile!
CMB 10/22/88
June 22, 2024
"Look Again" is a repetitive book that only needed to be an essay. You get all the information you need from chapter 1, and afterward you just get more examples of the same. Every chapter is very repetitive as well, re-wording the same information into very similar sentences multiple times. I have no doubt that some people really appreciate the repetition. I'm not one of them. This personal preference alone would have prevented me from giving the book more than a 3 star. But then...I encountered the fatphobia.
Early on the authors talk about the power of habituation and how scientists made people not like mac and cheese. Queue the joke: this was beneficial for the participants because they could fit in their jeans later on, unlike the people who still liked mac and cheese. Listen, I know how clinical studies are run, and I HIGHLY doubt that the authors could get approval for a habituation study and a diet/nutritional study all in one go. My (rather educated) guess was that this was the authors inserting their judgement about people who are overweight. I recently reviewed Kate Mane's book "Unshrinking" (/review/show...) and while I found the science to be lacking, the philosophical and psychological arguments behind it were sound and worth spreading. Assuming that people who gain weight are unhappy, or are worse off, or are lazy, or unable to control their appetite is not only disgusting, it's harmful and it's wrong. Let me give you my example. I no longer fit in any of my pants from last year. I had to buy all brand new pants, because I gained 30 pounds in the last 3 years. You must think I'm miserable. My waist line is larger, how else can I feel? Well, I'm actually relieved. I weighed 90 pounds 3 years ago after a nasty illness, and it took me aver 2 years to gain back the initial 20 pounds I lost in only 2 months. I went from significantly underweight to normal weight. I went from not having the energy to get up a flight of stairs to leading a fulfilling active life. You see why the metric of 'waist size' is not a proxy for happiness, health OR morality? And the authors kept coming back to this punchline even though it had NOTHING to do with the scientific arguments they were making, or their specialty. It's almost as if they needed themselves to look again at their own biases. So that was unpleasant enough to keep reading. But then...came the flag.
In the chapter discussing habituation to lying (I could write an entire essay about how the studies were flawed, extrapolated from narrow data, didn't consider lying to defend oneself, etc), the authors argue for the importance of never sliding down a slippery slope of immoral actions, as you may habituate for them. They put together in the same category: lying, slapping your mother, and burning a flag. They say you should never ever accept to burn a flag no matter what you're being plaid, and instead if you are paid to do it just invest the money into making people more patriotic. Okay. I'm not a flag burner, nor have I ever damaged or even stepped on something that looked like a flag on accident. But I did witness the 1989 Romanian revolution, when we cut holes in our flags then. I agree with the authors: it did habituate me to the action of damaging a flag. This is why the revolutionaries did it: we were starving, without heat and water for hours every day, unable to leave and under the boot of a dictator who lived a very comfy life. When people took to the streets, they cut out the emblem of the communist party that lay in the middle of the flag as a symbol of their want: dictatorship out, democracy in. Two decades later, the democratically elected government was trying to suppress voting from the diaspora; they were also spreading lies about the diaspora and people who voted against them. People took again to the streets. We no longer have an emblem on our flag, but people cut a hole in the middle, to remind the politicians what happens when dictators mess with the will of the people. I wasn't out on the street (I was still in line to vote with the diaspora), nor did I touch the flag. But I understand what the people were doing: communicating. They were patriots, defending democracy, after people died defending it 20 years earlier. Is damaging the flag the best way to do it? Maybe not, but it worked. The government backed down, people who were responsible for the voting fiasco stepped down, and usually they didn't care about people protesting. There is a reason why the SCOTUS has defended people damaging the US flag; it's part of the 1st Amendment, and a method of communicating displeasure with the people in power. Let me tell you one more story: when I started dating my husband, I was on a double date with a guy originally from Turkey. He was very proud of the way the Otoman empire had spread and conquered it's way into Europe. They were, in his eyes heroes, and also, he wanted to shoot and kill anybody who burns the flag. Fun fact, but Romanians don't see the Otomans as heroes, we see them as the oppressors they were to us: they burned our lands, enslaved our people, stole our goods, refused our right to self govern for CENTURIES. Oh yes, the Turkish man was a patriot. But in the situation I gave you, do you think he was the morally superior one, when he was excusing the crimes of his ancestors as glorious acts? My husband who was at the time a college dropout and an active US military man stepped in to say: "I wouldn't kill someone who burns a flag. I'd be pissed at them, but they're not hurting anybody. They're just communicating, even though I hate their means of communicating." And there it is ladies and gentlemen, a college dropout had more reasoning and ability to see beyond his own biases than 2 PhDs. Two academics who put flag burning in the same category as slapping your mother. Because of course physical assault on the person who birthed and raised you is very similar to damaging a piece of cloth that has a strong emotional value to you.
That was the point of rage quit for me. No matter what the authors were going to say next, I knew I wasn't going to be able to overlook their biases and limited thinking. The authors needed to "Look Again" at their own habituations. And other readers can probably look elsewhere for more info about the topics discussed here.
Early on the authors talk about the power of habituation and how scientists made people not like mac and cheese. Queue the joke: this was beneficial for the participants because they could fit in their jeans later on, unlike the people who still liked mac and cheese. Listen, I know how clinical studies are run, and I HIGHLY doubt that the authors could get approval for a habituation study and a diet/nutritional study all in one go. My (rather educated) guess was that this was the authors inserting their judgement about people who are overweight. I recently reviewed Kate Mane's book "Unshrinking" (/review/show...) and while I found the science to be lacking, the philosophical and psychological arguments behind it were sound and worth spreading. Assuming that people who gain weight are unhappy, or are worse off, or are lazy, or unable to control their appetite is not only disgusting, it's harmful and it's wrong. Let me give you my example. I no longer fit in any of my pants from last year. I had to buy all brand new pants, because I gained 30 pounds in the last 3 years. You must think I'm miserable. My waist line is larger, how else can I feel? Well, I'm actually relieved. I weighed 90 pounds 3 years ago after a nasty illness, and it took me aver 2 years to gain back the initial 20 pounds I lost in only 2 months. I went from significantly underweight to normal weight. I went from not having the energy to get up a flight of stairs to leading a fulfilling active life. You see why the metric of 'waist size' is not a proxy for happiness, health OR morality? And the authors kept coming back to this punchline even though it had NOTHING to do with the scientific arguments they were making, or their specialty. It's almost as if they needed themselves to look again at their own biases. So that was unpleasant enough to keep reading. But then...came the flag.
In the chapter discussing habituation to lying (I could write an entire essay about how the studies were flawed, extrapolated from narrow data, didn't consider lying to defend oneself, etc), the authors argue for the importance of never sliding down a slippery slope of immoral actions, as you may habituate for them. They put together in the same category: lying, slapping your mother, and burning a flag. They say you should never ever accept to burn a flag no matter what you're being plaid, and instead if you are paid to do it just invest the money into making people more patriotic. Okay. I'm not a flag burner, nor have I ever damaged or even stepped on something that looked like a flag on accident. But I did witness the 1989 Romanian revolution, when we cut holes in our flags then. I agree with the authors: it did habituate me to the action of damaging a flag. This is why the revolutionaries did it: we were starving, without heat and water for hours every day, unable to leave and under the boot of a dictator who lived a very comfy life. When people took to the streets, they cut out the emblem of the communist party that lay in the middle of the flag as a symbol of their want: dictatorship out, democracy in. Two decades later, the democratically elected government was trying to suppress voting from the diaspora; they were also spreading lies about the diaspora and people who voted against them. People took again to the streets. We no longer have an emblem on our flag, but people cut a hole in the middle, to remind the politicians what happens when dictators mess with the will of the people. I wasn't out on the street (I was still in line to vote with the diaspora), nor did I touch the flag. But I understand what the people were doing: communicating. They were patriots, defending democracy, after people died defending it 20 years earlier. Is damaging the flag the best way to do it? Maybe not, but it worked. The government backed down, people who were responsible for the voting fiasco stepped down, and usually they didn't care about people protesting. There is a reason why the SCOTUS has defended people damaging the US flag; it's part of the 1st Amendment, and a method of communicating displeasure with the people in power. Let me tell you one more story: when I started dating my husband, I was on a double date with a guy originally from Turkey. He was very proud of the way the Otoman empire had spread and conquered it's way into Europe. They were, in his eyes heroes, and also, he wanted to shoot and kill anybody who burns the flag. Fun fact, but Romanians don't see the Otomans as heroes, we see them as the oppressors they were to us: they burned our lands, enslaved our people, stole our goods, refused our right to self govern for CENTURIES. Oh yes, the Turkish man was a patriot. But in the situation I gave you, do you think he was the morally superior one, when he was excusing the crimes of his ancestors as glorious acts? My husband who was at the time a college dropout and an active US military man stepped in to say: "I wouldn't kill someone who burns a flag. I'd be pissed at them, but they're not hurting anybody. They're just communicating, even though I hate their means of communicating." And there it is ladies and gentlemen, a college dropout had more reasoning and ability to see beyond his own biases than 2 PhDs. Two academics who put flag burning in the same category as slapping your mother. Because of course physical assault on the person who birthed and raised you is very similar to damaging a piece of cloth that has a strong emotional value to you.
That was the point of rage quit for me. No matter what the authors were going to say next, I knew I wasn't going to be able to overlook their biases and limited thinking. The authors needed to "Look Again" at their own habituations. And other readers can probably look elsewhere for more info about the topics discussed here.
March 21, 2024
There are much better works that provide detailed historical connections and deeper dives into sociological nuances. This book is a lightweight narrative utilizing varied factoids in summation. I don't feel enlightened or smarter, and there are no takeaways or 'aha' moments. Sociology and history enthusiasts should visit/revisit Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, and any of Bell Hooks works as a palette cleanser after xonsuming these authors' notes..
As the fascists and revisionists blatantly roll through school boards across the U.S. at this writing, I'd wager this soft serve narrative non-threatening and disappointingly 'safe' from the book burners.
It's really a shame. I did have high hopes about this work.
As the fascists and revisionists blatantly roll through school boards across the U.S. at this writing, I'd wager this soft serve narrative non-threatening and disappointingly 'safe' from the book burners.
It's really a shame. I did have high hopes about this work.
March 19, 2024
I would have enjoyed more information on how to avoid habituation and it does sometimes seem to be a bit repetitive of the classics of social science. I mean truly, do we need to hear, yet again, all the problems with the study aside, of Stanley Milgram's pain infliction experiment?
April 18, 2024
This was an easy, enjoyable read. Lots to learn about habituation and my own experience bears out a lot of what's presented. I enjoyed the stories and the scientific backing.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
April 7, 2024
We went to see Cass Sunstein present on this book at the University of Toronto on the day that Daniel Kahneman passed away. Sunstein had co-authored a book with Kahneman. It was notable because the book “Look Again� made no reference to the Thinking, Fast and Slow model proposed by Kahneman, although the book dances around the idea. He should Look Again at the Kahneman book.
The core idea of Look Again is that habitualizing creates perceptual conditions, mostly problems. Once we are used to an idea we start to either ignore it of believe it is true. This is the basis of the “tell a lie many times and people believe it is true.� The argument in the book is that familiarity with the idea paves the way for its acceptance as a truth.
The fast-slow brain model would suggest that the idea stops being assessed by the fast brain and is not evaluated by the slow brain based on that familiarity.
This seems to be an operational function of the brain. We evolved looking for food, something that looked different or moved in the stillness of the forest, things that went from background to foreground. Our fast brain designates these into the foreground when they don’t seem to have value.
We don’t hear our spouse once again telling an often-told story because our fast brain relegates it to background noise. No new information means no need to use the slow brain’s thinking. We get the same experience on our drive to work � arriving without remembering anything about the trip unless it was unusual or life threatening. It is the human version of the autopilot. We don’t engage our energy using slow brain unless we must, as decided by the fast brain gatekeeper.
The book also argues that the standards determined by our habitualization make it difficult for us to make value judgements about quality since we tend not to measure it in absolute terms but in relative terms based on our experiences. It takes a person with an outside the box view to create the questions which lead to modification � how Fosbury changed high jumping, how Rosa Parks refused to ride in the back of the bus and so on. These perceptions and actions are often made by outsiders who see things based on a different basic context. As we often say, you can’t read the label from inside the jar.
The book is weakened by its use of cutesy personal anecdotes as examples of ideas which minimizes concepts into personal observations. These don’t provide any scientific or theoretical explanations. Almost the first half of the book was taken up with these kinds of little personal observations making it hard to take the ideas seriously.
It was hard to believe that Kahneman’s model wasn’t used or cited over and over again. The ideas are derivative from his theorizing. The habitualizing of perceptions is a minimalization of energy carried on by the fast brain to increase our efficiency in everyday life, not needing to rely on problem solving for problems already solved.
There are communications lessons in understanding this. The book dwells on people no challenging erroneous thoughts because they are familiar. We also ignore important messages if they are told to us too many times. We hear them without integrating them into our behaviour. Messages such as warnings on products: cigarettes, alcohol, drugs and any contract requiring “agree to� before use. The warnings of side effects for medications advertised, for example, are usually made over visual distractions to interest the fast brain so the warnings are not stored effectively in the thinking slow brain.
The book is a good example of creating a superficial explanation to a perceptual problem in today’s world that wasn’t really a problem for the first million years or so of human existence.
We rely on habitualization. It helps us get through each day: To know when to eat, when to sleep, where we put our toothbrush, where we left our car, how to comb our hair. The book sells it short. If we couldn’t rely on those habits, we would be like Guy Pearce’s character in Memento and have to constantly figure out things out minute by minute.
The core idea of Look Again is that habitualizing creates perceptual conditions, mostly problems. Once we are used to an idea we start to either ignore it of believe it is true. This is the basis of the “tell a lie many times and people believe it is true.� The argument in the book is that familiarity with the idea paves the way for its acceptance as a truth.
The fast-slow brain model would suggest that the idea stops being assessed by the fast brain and is not evaluated by the slow brain based on that familiarity.
This seems to be an operational function of the brain. We evolved looking for food, something that looked different or moved in the stillness of the forest, things that went from background to foreground. Our fast brain designates these into the foreground when they don’t seem to have value.
We don’t hear our spouse once again telling an often-told story because our fast brain relegates it to background noise. No new information means no need to use the slow brain’s thinking. We get the same experience on our drive to work � arriving without remembering anything about the trip unless it was unusual or life threatening. It is the human version of the autopilot. We don’t engage our energy using slow brain unless we must, as decided by the fast brain gatekeeper.
The book also argues that the standards determined by our habitualization make it difficult for us to make value judgements about quality since we tend not to measure it in absolute terms but in relative terms based on our experiences. It takes a person with an outside the box view to create the questions which lead to modification � how Fosbury changed high jumping, how Rosa Parks refused to ride in the back of the bus and so on. These perceptions and actions are often made by outsiders who see things based on a different basic context. As we often say, you can’t read the label from inside the jar.
The book is weakened by its use of cutesy personal anecdotes as examples of ideas which minimizes concepts into personal observations. These don’t provide any scientific or theoretical explanations. Almost the first half of the book was taken up with these kinds of little personal observations making it hard to take the ideas seriously.
It was hard to believe that Kahneman’s model wasn’t used or cited over and over again. The ideas are derivative from his theorizing. The habitualizing of perceptions is a minimalization of energy carried on by the fast brain to increase our efficiency in everyday life, not needing to rely on problem solving for problems already solved.
There are communications lessons in understanding this. The book dwells on people no challenging erroneous thoughts because they are familiar. We also ignore important messages if they are told to us too many times. We hear them without integrating them into our behaviour. Messages such as warnings on products: cigarettes, alcohol, drugs and any contract requiring “agree to� before use. The warnings of side effects for medications advertised, for example, are usually made over visual distractions to interest the fast brain so the warnings are not stored effectively in the thinking slow brain.
The book is a good example of creating a superficial explanation to a perceptual problem in today’s world that wasn’t really a problem for the first million years or so of human existence.
We rely on habitualization. It helps us get through each day: To know when to eat, when to sleep, where we put our toothbrush, where we left our car, how to comb our hair. The book sells it short. If we couldn’t rely on those habits, we would be like Guy Pearce’s character in Memento and have to constantly figure out things out minute by minute.
September 6, 2024
I recently read the book "The Good Psychopath's Guide" by Kevin Dutton, which initially turned me on to the idea of Mindfulness and trying to slow down and spend time noticing the mundane things around us. I bought this book because it seemed like a deeper dive into what was a single chapter in the previously mentioned book.
I liked this book less than that chapter. The book is less about mindfulness, and more about the psychological concept of habituation, or growing accustomed to a repeated stimulus. In other words, it talks a lot about this concept, but not as much about strategies for overcoming habituation. In fairness, it does touch on it occasionally, but that is certainly not the focus.
The thing I did like about this book is that it did reference quite a few studies and research. This made the book feel more data driven than opinion driven. I found some of the ideas about the correlation between mental health and habituation particularly interesting. However, it seems like many of the examples, studies and research discussed in the book, do so in a very surface level way.
I also found some of the examples of habituation boring a lazy. Two of the examples were how people only commented or tweeted about the weather if the weather broke from expectations. For example, in India, people are less likely to tweet about an unusually warm spell because they are accustomed to warmer weather, in the same way those from England are less likely to tweet about cold or rainy weather. Another comparison was how the level of crime or poverty in an area doesn't have an affect on our overall happiness once we grow accustomed to the level of crime, poverty or smog/ pollution in a particular area.
I thought these examples were fairly obvious, and the authors didn't delve into any of these examples much further than that, making portions of the book feel very lackluster.
Further, although very, very subtly, the authors did walk the line of politics more often than I would have liked for what I thought was supposed to be an unbiased topic. Whether I disagree or agree with those opinions and assumptions, I find this detracts from the concept of the book. I wouldn't mind reading a book about how habituation affects politics specifically, and I think that would be a perfectly fine topic that would warrant a much longer second book. But the onset of this book seemed to be the effects of habituation on a personal level, and the examples in politics, for example, how many times Donald Trump lied on average in his presidency, whether true or not, deviated from the purpose of this book, I thought.
I was also disappointed by some of the other conclusions of this book which I felt were slightly biased, and seemed to deviate from the original premise. After talking about how we grow accustomed to certain temperatures and pollution levels, the author remarks about how this leads to people not being concerned about environmental issues, because we have habituated the overall temperature, and don't notice a gradual increase. I thought this was a broad, and overgeneralization of this particular issue, as environmental and economic concerns are a very broad and complicated issue, and although the authors didn't directly say as much, it was hinted as to why we don't care more about the environment and why we should.
I think this overly simplifies a complicated topic that at the same time, detracts from the original message of the book of habituation at an individual level, and not about our habituation of environmental concerns as a society as a whole.
I liked this book less than that chapter. The book is less about mindfulness, and more about the psychological concept of habituation, or growing accustomed to a repeated stimulus. In other words, it talks a lot about this concept, but not as much about strategies for overcoming habituation. In fairness, it does touch on it occasionally, but that is certainly not the focus.
The thing I did like about this book is that it did reference quite a few studies and research. This made the book feel more data driven than opinion driven. I found some of the ideas about the correlation between mental health and habituation particularly interesting. However, it seems like many of the examples, studies and research discussed in the book, do so in a very surface level way.
I also found some of the examples of habituation boring a lazy. Two of the examples were how people only commented or tweeted about the weather if the weather broke from expectations. For example, in India, people are less likely to tweet about an unusually warm spell because they are accustomed to warmer weather, in the same way those from England are less likely to tweet about cold or rainy weather. Another comparison was how the level of crime or poverty in an area doesn't have an affect on our overall happiness once we grow accustomed to the level of crime, poverty or smog/ pollution in a particular area.
I thought these examples were fairly obvious, and the authors didn't delve into any of these examples much further than that, making portions of the book feel very lackluster.
Further, although very, very subtly, the authors did walk the line of politics more often than I would have liked for what I thought was supposed to be an unbiased topic. Whether I disagree or agree with those opinions and assumptions, I find this detracts from the concept of the book. I wouldn't mind reading a book about how habituation affects politics specifically, and I think that would be a perfectly fine topic that would warrant a much longer second book. But the onset of this book seemed to be the effects of habituation on a personal level, and the examples in politics, for example, how many times Donald Trump lied on average in his presidency, whether true or not, deviated from the purpose of this book, I thought.
I was also disappointed by some of the other conclusions of this book which I felt were slightly biased, and seemed to deviate from the original premise. After talking about how we grow accustomed to certain temperatures and pollution levels, the author remarks about how this leads to people not being concerned about environmental issues, because we have habituated the overall temperature, and don't notice a gradual increase. I thought this was a broad, and overgeneralization of this particular issue, as environmental and economic concerns are a very broad and complicated issue, and although the authors didn't directly say as much, it was hinted as to why we don't care more about the environment and why we should.
I think this overly simplifies a complicated topic that at the same time, detracts from the original message of the book of habituation at an individual level, and not about our habituation of environmental concerns as a society as a whole.
December 24, 2024
I was unfamiliar with Sharot and Sunstein and their works, so I came to this book based solely on the intriguing cover and the fact that it was on the new book shelf at the library. I read quite a bit of psychology and sociology to see if it can be applied to the work I do with my organizing and productivity clients, and was not disappointed by this book.
You don't need to be particularly familiar with habituation or dishabituation to find this book useful and fascinating. In my field, I can apply the concepts to how clients become clutter-blind, how one can become habituated to tangible things but not the joy of learning, and the way in which we only notice what is surprising and different, and will rarely if ever be triggered to change that which is expected, anticipated, or seemingly normal. (So, more clutter becomes more normal the longer it builds up.)
But I was impressed with how the authors applied the concepts to everything from monogamy in relationships and emotional well-being to dishonesty and misinformation to global warming, tyranny, and the law.
I appreciated how well the authors blended social science research and real-world examples without an over-reliance on either scientific terms or clichés, and found the writing style to be upbeat, warm, and relaxed. I was able to dip in and out of this book over the course of a few weeks while reading other books as well, and rarely had to go back more than a paragraph or two to get my bearings and find the context even after a day's pause.
If you're looking for a great overview on the ways habituation and dishabituation can be applied in your personal life and/or in our communal lives as citizens, this is ideal. And if you're just looking for an interesting book to spelunk around in without having to carry along a social science thesaurus, this is it, too.
There are no flaws, per se, but I think the book might have benefited from a summary page at the end of each section of a handful of chapters. While I read the entire book, in order, I was under the weather during half of my read, and probably won't remember the points I read as sharply. A summary of bullet points/examples would take this from a nifty primer to a guiding text.
Either way, from the baseline concept that "pleasure results from incomplete and intermittent satisfaction of desires" to the societal implications of trying to warn people of impending dangers of misinformation campaigns and tyranny, the book was entertaining, interesting, and compelling.
I also enjoyed the factoids, like how taking breaks during unpleasant experiences slows the habituation (so get yucky things over in one fell swoop), the fact that people with schizophrenia are unable to ignore or habituate to various annoying stimuli (because the neurons in their auditory cortexes fail to decrease their response to repeated stimuli), and change (or even the anticipation of change) -- even small changes like standing or sitting -- can improve creativity.
If you're looking for something that makes you feel smarter without too much extra effort, look at Look Again.
You don't need to be particularly familiar with habituation or dishabituation to find this book useful and fascinating. In my field, I can apply the concepts to how clients become clutter-blind, how one can become habituated to tangible things but not the joy of learning, and the way in which we only notice what is surprising and different, and will rarely if ever be triggered to change that which is expected, anticipated, or seemingly normal. (So, more clutter becomes more normal the longer it builds up.)
But I was impressed with how the authors applied the concepts to everything from monogamy in relationships and emotional well-being to dishonesty and misinformation to global warming, tyranny, and the law.
I appreciated how well the authors blended social science research and real-world examples without an over-reliance on either scientific terms or clichés, and found the writing style to be upbeat, warm, and relaxed. I was able to dip in and out of this book over the course of a few weeks while reading other books as well, and rarely had to go back more than a paragraph or two to get my bearings and find the context even after a day's pause.
If you're looking for a great overview on the ways habituation and dishabituation can be applied in your personal life and/or in our communal lives as citizens, this is ideal. And if you're just looking for an interesting book to spelunk around in without having to carry along a social science thesaurus, this is it, too.
There are no flaws, per se, but I think the book might have benefited from a summary page at the end of each section of a handful of chapters. While I read the entire book, in order, I was under the weather during half of my read, and probably won't remember the points I read as sharply. A summary of bullet points/examples would take this from a nifty primer to a guiding text.
Either way, from the baseline concept that "pleasure results from incomplete and intermittent satisfaction of desires" to the societal implications of trying to warn people of impending dangers of misinformation campaigns and tyranny, the book was entertaining, interesting, and compelling.
I also enjoyed the factoids, like how taking breaks during unpleasant experiences slows the habituation (so get yucky things over in one fell swoop), the fact that people with schizophrenia are unable to ignore or habituate to various annoying stimuli (because the neurons in their auditory cortexes fail to decrease their response to repeated stimuli), and change (or even the anticipation of change) -- even small changes like standing or sitting -- can improve creativity.
If you're looking for something that makes you feel smarter without too much extra effort, look at Look Again.
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