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A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives (Paperback)

by Cordelia Fine (Author) "Do you feel that you can trust your own brain? ..." (more)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Icon Books Ltd (4 Jan 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1840467983
  • ISBN-13: 978-1840467987
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 8,973 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"'Fine sets out to demonstrate that the human brain is vainglorious and stubborn. She succeeds brilliantly.' Mail on Sunday 'In breezy demotic, Fine offers an entertaining tour of current thinking' Telegraph 'This is one of the most interesting and amusing accounts of how we think we think - I think.' Alexander McCall Smith 'A fascinating, funny, disconcerting and lucid book... by the end you'll realise that your brain can (and does) run rings around you.' Helen Dunmore 'Consistently well-written and meticulously researched' Alain de Botton The Sunday Times 'Fine, a cognitive neuroscientist with a sharp sense of humour and an intelligent sense of reality, slaps an Asbo on the hundred billion grey cells that - literally - have shifty, ruthless, self-serving minds of their own.' The Times 'Clear, accessible writing makes her a science writer to watch' Metro 'Fine wears her learning lightly, blending facts with humorous observations. The result is a fascinating insight into how our minds work.' Psychologies 'A witty survey of psychology experiments demonstrating the depths of our suggestibility, the irrationality of our reasoning and the limits of free will.' Focus"


Metro

'Clear and accessible - a science writer to watch' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
Do you feel that you can trust your own brain? Read the first page
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Making it Up As We Go, 29 Oct 2006
By William Holmes "semloh2287" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives (Hardcover)
Cordelia Fine's "A Mind of its Own" reminds me a lot of Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink"--it is filled with surprising and counterintuitive observations about how the brain really works. Fine's thesis is that our brains do a fine job of deluding us--making us think that we are smart, attractive, above average, considerate, unbiased and blissfully free of the shortcomings and moral defects that plague other people. It's a good thing, too--as Fine points out in one striking paragraph, "there is a category of people who get unusually close to the truth about themselves and the world. . . . They are the clinically depressed." Ignorance really is bliss!

With a witty style, Fine reviews the psychological experiments that show that our moods and judgments can be dramatically influenced by external factors like beautiful weather or by what someone just said or did to us. Our brains make up lots of excuses after the fact to explain what we did and why, or to shift blame to others, all in an effort to make it seem that we are good people who are in control of our lives. We end up being bigoted, pigheaded, immoral and emotional, even when we think we are none of those things. On the whole, it's not a very flattering picture, although Fine does point to some encouraging studies suggesting that some of the brain's worst excesses (e.g., bigotry) can be curbed by careful attention to our thoughts--of course, in other contexts, focused thought can make things worse.

This book is full of lots of "aha!" moments, but it's not a self-help guide. The message sometimes seems to be "you're not really in conrol here--try to enjoy the ride!"

That said, I draw one very important conclusion from this entertaining book: avoid spending time with scientists who are conducting psychology experiments. These people are apparently always testing things other than what they pretend to be testing, and your brain will invariably come out of the experiment looking rather shoddy and ill-mannered. ("Not my brain!" you may protest, in which case you definitely need to read Chapter 1 of Fine's book.)

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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and illuminating, 20 Nov 2006
By A. Goff "andrewg" (Manchester, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives (Hardcover)
This is an excellent book. It brings together a wealth of academic research into the way our brains work and, in particular, how we can't rely on them, and I found this fascinating and in the case of some chapters genuinely helpful and illuminating. But what sets the book apart is the fact that this material is presented so clearly and readably. And it's often very funny!

This book was strongly recommended to me by a friend, who obviously thought I needed to read it, and I'm very glad I have now read it. I in turn recommended it to a friend who is a consultant psychiatrist, and in fact he'd already read it and thought it was very good too. So it works for a top brain-doctor and for a complete layman like me. Exceptional.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A mind of its own, 10 Feb 2006
By Nicky Smith (N Ayrshire Scotland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives (Hardcover)
Suitable for the general reader rather than the expert (though it does provide a useful list of references), this is a light and entertaining account of findings from social psychological research on the topic of self-deception. We are told in largely non-technical language how numerous cleverly designed experiments have thrown light on the mental biases and distortions that beset our personal and social beliefs - how "vanity shields us from unpalatable truths about ourselves", how "irrationality clouds our judgment", how "emotions add a gloss of their own, colouring and confusing our opinions", and so forth. Although we can not altogether escape from these "deceptions of our wayward brains", the author concludes that knowledge of their mode of operation will help us guard against them, as will constant efforts to check the evidence on which our views are based.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good
Excellent book. Written in a lighthearted manner, with many accounts of psychological experiments and their conclusions. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Arvinder Virk

3.0 out of 5 stars Important but superficial
This is a really important and little understood issue. It is also fascinating. The implications are huge; think of the courts, the media, the democratic process. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Mike Swain

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent style
Excellent popsci writing and editing -- couldn't put it down. Other popsci writers should observe and learn.
Published on 12 Oct 2007 by foxx2

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, very readable and thought-provoking
This is an excellent book. Cordelia Fine gathers together the results of a wide variety of psychology experiments and uses them to gather together a convincing explanation of how... Read more
Published on 8 Sep 2007 by Mr. Stuart Bruce

5.0 out of 5 stars Amusing and thought provoking book.
This is an awesome book. It details how the brain (unconsciously) deceives itself and how susceptible we are to factors we are just unaware of. Read more
Published on 21 Jun 2007 by C. J. R. Thompson

5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth checking out
This book was thrown up as a recommendation by Amazon based on previous purchases - yes, advertising does work! Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2007 by JA Foxton

5.0 out of 5 stars "How the Mind Works" - the latest version **
In "Consciousness Explained", philosopher Daniel C. Dennett proposed a Multiple Drafts Model for human consciousness. Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2006 by Stephen A. Haines

4.0 out of 5 stars A fun and informative read
This is a very good book - it is detailed in its use of the research literature, and the themes for each chapter are well-structured, and informative for everyone. Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2006 by pauljam

3.0 out of 5 stars Coffee Table Reading
I was rather disappointed in this book : yes, it is very accessible and easy to read, and (very) occasionally amusing, but if you're looking for something that explains how the... Read more
Published on 28 Jun 2006 by ianscardiff

5.0 out of 5 stars A really entertaining and thought-provoking read
This is one of the most fascinating non-fiction books I can remember reading. It really makes you question your thought processes, and just as you are thinking 'that... Read more
Published on 10 Mar 2006 by Mark B. Cohen

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