Look Again
The Power of Noticing What was Always There
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
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?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Even the most "exhilarating" stimuli—a favorite song, an exciting romance—lose their luster over time, acknowledge cognitive neuroscientist Sharot (The Optimism Bias) and behavioral economist Sunstein (The World According to Star Wars) in this eye-opening study of how that process may be reversed. According to the authors, the brain acclimates to negative and positive stimuli over time as it "prioritize what is new and different... filter out the old and expected." However, some of that sensitivity can be restored by "temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people with whom you interact, and taking real or imagined minibreaks from ordinary life." Briefly leaving a quiet restaurant table with a beautiful view to visit a noisier area can enhance enjoyment of the meal, for example. It's also possible to dishabituate to risk—in Sweden, switching the side of the road on which people drove temporarily decreased the rate of accidents (it returned to previous levels after about two years). Corralling a wealth of fascinating examples, including how vigilance against Covid-19 slackened the longer the pandemic wore on and the manner in which Germans acclimated to Nazism ("The collapse of freedom and rule of law occurred in increments, some of which seemed relatively insignificant"), Sharot and Sunstein provide a revelatory investigation of a phenomenon that's as complex as it is common. This enthralls.
