psychology

The Four Tendencies

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I tend to be a bit concerned by psychology books from people without psychology qualifications, but Cat was keen for me to read this book based on her encounters of the author in podcast form. Luckily, Psychology Today seems to have relatively positive things to say about the book so I decided to give it a go.

Regardless, attempts to pigeonhole people into psychological buckets have always made me uncomfortable — be they Myers Briggs, Strengths Finder, or now the Four Tendencies. Ironically under the Four Tendencies framework I think that would make me a Questioner, but the (very short) analysis quiz declared me to be an Obliger. I am very sure my management chain at work would agree that if I am an Obliger I’m definitely hiding it pretty well. I’m not really sure what that means to be honest.

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The Four Tendencies Book Cover The Four Tendencies
Gretchen Rubin
Psychology
Two Roads
May 3, 2018
257

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The Stranger in the Woods

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At 20, Chris Knight set off into the woods to avoid society. He didn't come out apart from to commit petty theft for supplies for 27 years, when he was finally caught after about 1,000 burglaries. Catherine and I are a bit divided on this story -- I think Chris clearly had something wrong in terms of mental health, whereas Catherine thinks he crossed a line when he committed theft to survive. Either way, I don't think you could claim that Chris was living in luxury in isolation, especially when research has shown that extended isolation is generally very bad for mental health. I came across this book because Digital Minimalism recommended it as a good exploration of solitude, but most of the book really isn't about that. Mostly the book is a description of Knight and his life for those 27 years. That said, it's still an interesting read. I'd avoid the book if talk of suicide is a trigger for you, although Knight does not appear to have carried through on his threat.

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Drive

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This is a book about motivation, specifically about how our assumptions that biological urges and extrinsic motivation are sufficient to model all human behaviours. It turns out that's not true -- intrinsic motivation plays an important part, and in fact badly applied extrinsic motivators can harm the much more powerful intrinsic motivating factors. (It will be interesting to see what corporations currently cutting bonus payouts experience in terms of overall productivity now that they've removed an extrinsic motivator). Intrinsic motivation is more important for heuristic work where the outcomes aren't algorithmic or clear cut the book argues. It's not as simple as just cranking and handle and creativity comes out the other end. However, that's just what traditional management is -- a series of carrots and sticks to crinkle that handle as fast as possible. Its important to note here that the book repeatedly states that intrinsic motivation only works if the person's baseline needs are already met. That is, you need to be earning enough to pay your bills and so forth before you start valuing how interesting work is. Instead, the book encourages companies to consider things like 20% time, self organizing teams, flexible work hours, and so forth.…

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Plays Well With Others

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This book lied to me. It purports to start out with a description of a hostage situation in New York city. However, the twist is it turns out that its a simulation instead of the real deal. The deception is complete! However, this is a  pretty unusually effective way to "hook" people at the beginning of a non-fiction book. Importantly, the book also points out that the techniques that hostage negotiators use to take the heat out of a situation don't work for your marriage: Note to self: something designed for terrorists and emotionally disturbed people isn't perfect for your family. That opening is indicative of the rest of the book -- very readable, and good at keeping your interest. I guess that's good in a psychology book? Every chapter starts with a story, and sometimes the stories are event related to the topic at hand, which is admirable. The whole book is written in a lighthearted style that is fun without coming across as forced, which I think is a pretty impressive thing to have achieved. The book starts out discussing if you can judge a book by its cover -- that is, how good are humans at reading…

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Everything is Obvious, Once You Know The Answer

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This is a book about common sense. Specifically, it's about how when you're told a fact it seems obvious -- common sense -- that it's true. Interestingly, this can be the case even if that fact is in fact untrue. This is at least partially because common sense is mostly practical, that is it's more concerned about "getting to the right answer", preferably quickly, than it is about exactly how it got to that answer. It's also partially because common sense is cultural, we map new situations to things we've seen previously to infer the correct answer. Different cultures have different experiences and so therefore have different common sense. The book spends a chapter discussing the ways that humans make decisions, and how logic isn't really the answer. We instead imagine ourselves in the projected situation and then work through what will happen. This means that we're bad at seeing attempts to anchor our thinking, or other forms of bias. We also tend to think that incentives will work better than they actually do in the real world. That is, we are bad at predicting what factors will be important in someone's decision making process and then apply ineffective incentives.…

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