The hidden brain : how our unconscious minds elect presidents, control markets, wage wars, and save our lives / Shankar Vedantam

Author:: Vedantam, Shankar
Published:: New York : Spiegel & Grau, 2010.
Edition:: 1st ed.
Physical Description:: x, 270 pages ; 25 cm

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Contents:

1. The Myth of Intention -- 2. The Ubiquitous Shadow: The Hidden Brain at Work and Play -- 3. Tracking the Hidden Brain: How Mental Disorders Reveal Our Unconscious Lives -- 4. The Infant's Stare, Macaca, and Racist Seniors: The Life Cycle of Bias -- 5. The Invisible Current: Gender, Privilege, and the Hidden Brain -- 6. The Siren's Call: Disasters and the Lure of Conformity -- 7. The Tunnel: Terrorism, Extremism, and the Hidden Brain -- 8. Shades of Justice: Unconscious Bias and the Death Penalty -- 9. Disarming the Bomb: Politics, Race, and the Hidden Brain -- 10. The Telescope Effect: Lost Dogs and Genocide.

Summary:

""The hidden brain" is Shankar Vedantam's shorthand for a host of brain functions, emotional responses, and cognitive processes that happen outside our conscious awareness but have a decisive effect on how we behave. The hidden brain has its finger on the scale when we make all our most complex and important decisions: It decides whom we fall in love with, whether we should convict someone of murder, and which way to run when someone yells "Fire!" It explains why we can become riveted by the story of a single puppy adrift on the ocean but are quickly bored by a story of genocide. The hidden brain can also be deliberately manipulated to convince people to vote against their own interests, or even become suicide terrorists. But the most disturbing thing is that it does all this without our knowing." "Shankar Vedantam takes us on a tour of this phenomenon and explores its consequences. Using original reporting that combines the latest scientific research with compulsively readable narratives that take readers from the American campaign trail to terrorist indoctrination camps, from the World Trade Center on 9/11 to, yes, a puppy adrift on the Pacific Ocean, Vedantam illuminates the dark recesses of our minds while making an original argument about how we can compensate for our blind spots - and what happens when we don't."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject(s):

ISBN:

9780385525213 (alk. paper)
0385525214 (alk. paper)

Bibliography Note:

Includes bibliographical references.

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