An accessible treatise on the need to ensure that information improves citizens’ well-being.
A former presidential adviser considers the complexities of information disclosure.
Sunstein, a legal scholar who, in the Obama White House, oversaw federal regulations that required disclosure about such matters as nutrition and workplace safety, opens his latest book by asking, “When should government require companies, employers, hospitals, and others to disclose information?” His short answer: whenever doing so makes people happier or helps them make decisions. But as he notes, “Whether it’s right to disclose bad news depends on the people and the situation. One size does not fit all.” In these essays, Sunstein addresses key questions policymakers should consider when deciding whether to disclose or request information. Topics include the reasons people might or might not want information (a friend joked that he “ruined popcorn” after the FDA finalized a regulation that movie theaters and restaurants had to disclose caloric content); the psychological factors to consider when designing disclosures, such as that some people don’t read them, especially when, as with software downloads, they’re long; and the value people place on social media, an essay in which he notes a paradox: “the use of Facebook makes people, on average, a bit less happy—more likely to be depressed, more likely to be anxious, less satisfied with their lives,” yet many people “would demand a lot of money to give it up.” Despite the use of jargon such as “hedonic loss” and “availability heuristics,” the narrative is clear and relatable. Sunstein even delivers a few zingers, as when he notes in the chapter on “sludge,” the term for the excessive paperwork people wade through to cancel magazine subscriptions or sign up for free school meals: “The Department of the Treasury, and the IRS in particular, win Olympic gold for sludge production.”
An accessible treatise on the need to ensure that information improves citizens’ well-being.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-262-04416-5
Page Count: 248
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
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A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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