References
Introduction
P.xii ‘... Richard Dawkins introduced us to the meme, defined as ...’ See Merriam Webster Dictionary: www.merriam-webster.com.
P.xv ‘... The truth is rarely pure and never simple ...’ See Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1985, Act I.
P.xv ‘As David Rogers explains ...’ See Rogers (1990).
P.xvi ‘... “For every problem ...”’ H. L. Mencken, ‘The divine afflatus’ in New York Evening Mail, 16 November 1917.
P.xvi ‘... Follow your bliss ...’ See Campbell and Moyers (1989), 120, 149.
P.xvii Orwell, G. (2008) Nineteen Eighty-four. Penguin.
P.xix ‘... The deepest sin against the human mind ...’ See Thomas Huxley, Evolution and Ethics, 1893.
P.xxii ‘Let’s just say that if I have to read ... Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle ...’ See Heisenberg, Eckart and Hoyt (2003).
Myth 1 The root of all your problems is low self-esteem
P.1 ‘High self-esteem isn’t a luxury ...’ See Canfield (1989).
P.1 ‘The catalogue of personal and societal ills now laid at the door of low self-esteem is extensive ...’ See, for example, Kermis et al. (1989); Jang and Thornberry (1998); Covington (1989); DeWit et al. (2000); Pottebaum and Ehly (1986); Tharenou (1979); Berry et al. (2000); Crockenberg and Soby (1989); Bruch (1975); Branden (1994).
P.3–4 ‘Their self-ratings simply aren’t upheld by the independent evaluations of their peers or by objective tests of their attributes and abilities ...’ See Martin et al. (1984); Baumeister et al. (2003); Gabriel et al. (1994); Diener et al. (1995); Buhrmester et al. (1988).
P.4 ‘... there are indeed reasonable correlations between higher self-esteem and academic performance ...’ See, for example, Hansford and Hattie (1982).
P.4 ‘... the most comprehensive objective review of the self-esteem literature so far conducted ...’ See Baumeister et al. (2003).
P.4 ‘... Dan Olweus ... could find no evidence that male playground bullies were particularly anxious or insecure ...’ See Olweus (1993).
P.4–5 ‘A crucial influence on our thinking ... high self-esteem, not low, is indeed an important cause of aggression.’ Quoted in Baumeister (August 2006).
P.5 ‘Your self-esteem rating does not predict ...’ For discussion of all of the issues mentioned see Baumeister et al. (2003).
P.5 ‘... If we really love ourselves, everything in our lives works ...’ Louise Hay quoted on ThinkExist.com.
P.5 ‘... Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? ...’ St Augustine of Hippo quoted in Hotchkiss (1895).
P.6 ‘... A voice of contemporary concern ... Professor Jean Twenge ...’ See Twenge, J. M. (2007).
P.6 ‘... In many cases, the suggested cure for narcissistic behaviour is “feeling good about yourself.” ...’ Quoted in Twenge and Campbell (2009).
P.6 ‘... Wouldn’t it be powerful if you fell in love with yourself so deeply ...?’ Alan Cohen quoted at spiritwire.com.
Myth 2 Let your feelings out!
P.11 ‘... Dr George Solomon ... people who repress their feelings are more at risk of rheumatoid arthritis, infections and certain types of cancer ...’ See Solomon et al. (1974); Dattore et al. (1980).
P.11 ‘... a team from the University of Buffalo ...’ See Seery et al. (2008).
P.12 ‘... a study of heart attack survivors conducted by Dr Karni Ginzburg and colleagues ...’ See Ginzburg et al. (2002).
P.12 ‘... Expressing anger does not reduce aggressive tendencies ...’ Lohr (2006), in Cavell and Malcolm.
P.12 ‘... an observation made by Charles Darwin ...’ See Darwin (1872).
P.13 ‘... a study in which moderately painful heat was applied ...’ Salomons et al. (2008).
P.13–14 ‘... Arlie Hochschild ... claims that the spontaneity of our feelings is often an illusion ...’ See Hochschild (1983).
Myth 3 Emotional intelligence is what really counts
P.17 ‘... What really matters for success, character, happiness and life long achievements is a definite set of emotional skills ...’ Daniel Goleman (1996).
P.17 ‘... psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer’s original concept ...’ See Salovey and Mayer (1990).
P.17 ‘... The strapline on the cover of Goleman’s most famous book reassures us that emotional intelligence “can matter more than IQ” ...’ See Goleman (1996).
P.18 ‘... emotional competencies were found to be twice as important as conventional intellect or expertise ...’ See Goleman (2009), 31.
P.18 ‘... One of the most authoritative reviews of the evidence to date ...’ See Van Rooy and Viswesvaran (2004).
P.18–19 ‘... Having had Lyle and Signe Spencer’s original competence framework studies reanalysed ...’ See Spencer and Spencer (1993).
P.19 ‘... On average close to 90 per cent of their success in leadership was attributable to emotional intelligence ... emotional competence accounts for virtually the entire advantage ...’ See Goleman (2009), 34.
P.19 ‘my search for a full account of this research in any peer-reviewed, academic journal has so far come up empty-handed.’ I have contacted the Hay Group about this and, at time of writing, am awaiting their response.
P.19 ‘... in interviews both Gates and Jobs have freely admitted to a pretty “robust”, confrontational, management style ...’ For example, Gregory Ferenstein recounts how Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs’ biographer) recalled Jobs explaining to him:
‘I can tell people in a meeting that they’re full of shit, but they can bark back at me and tell me I’m full of shit. And then we have the most rip-roaring arguments and that’s why we work together well.’
Posted on Fast Company 26th October 2011 (www.fastcompany.com/1790791/steve-jobs-biography-walter-isaacson).
Similarly Bill Gates, interviewed by Playboy magazine in 1994 regarding his ‘brusque’ management style responded:
‘I don’t know anything about employees in tears. I do know that if people say things that are wrong, others shouldn’t just sit there silently. They should speak. Great organizations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved. That’s true in any endeavor. I’ve never criticized a person. I have criticized ideas. If I think something’s a waste of time or inappropriate I don’t wait to point it out. I say it right away. It’s real time. So you might hear me say, “That’s the dumbest idea I have ever heard” many times during a meeting .... So, how do you have a successful software company? Well, you get me and Microsoft executive vice president Steve Ballmer and we just start yelling.’
Accessed on http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/billgates/l/blbillgatesint.htm.
P.19 ‘... the emotionally intelligent individual portrayed by Goleman: ... “poised and outgoing, committed to people and causes ...”’ Goleman quoted in Utne magazine, Nov–Dec 1995. Published online at www.utne.com/Science-Technology/Emotional-Intelligence-Quotient-Test.aspx.
P.21 ‘... Critics have been left despairing of ever being able to identify a coherent common factor or unifying principle ...’ See Murphy (2006); Matthews et al. (2004); Eysenck (2000).
P.22 ‘... Hans Eysenck observed: ... “if these five ‘abilities’ define ‘emotional intelligence’, we would expect some evidence that they are highly correlated ...”’ See Eysenck (2000).
P.24 ‘... Even in the fifteenth century Niccolo Machiavelli understood the psychology of power ....’ See Machiavelli.
Myth 4 Let your goals power you towards success!
P.27 ‘... We’re going on a bear hunt ...’ See Rosen and Oxenbury (1993).
P.27–8 ‘... according to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, we are often very poor at knowing what we want ...’ See Gilbert (2006).
P.29 ‘... “stretch goals” ... can be crushing and disheartening ...’ See Ordóñez et al. (2009).
P.29 ‘... people apparently only achieve stretch goals about ten per cent of the time ...’ See Daniels (2009).
P.29 ‘... Push too far and your higher centres will shut off ...’ See Arnsten et al. (2012).
P.30 ‘... Goals Gone Wild ... the authors ...’ Who are: L. D. Ordóñez, M. E. Schweitzer, A. D. Galinsky and M. H. Bazerman.
P.31 ‘... contentment is one of a group of positive emotions that ... Barbara Fredrickson believes actively expands our field of attention ...’ See Fredrickson and Branigan (2005).
P.31 ‘... The yogi T. K. V. Desikachar says ...’ Desikachar quoted by Miriam Ufberg on Positive Psychology News Daily (positivepsychologynews.com/news/miriamufberg/20070329181).
P.32 ‘... Dr Robert Emmons ... discovered experimentally that people encouraged to cultivate gratitude were up to 25 per cent happier ...’ See Emmons and McCullough (2003).
P.32–3 ‘... Happiness in Taoism is the personal liberation from all human desires ...’ From Lu (2001).
Myth 5 No one can make you feel anything
P.35 ‘... Just as money can’t make you happy, other people can’t make you happy either ... See Kate Wachs (2002).
P.36 ‘... Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has successfully demonstrated over numerous clinical trials ...’ See Roth et al. (2006) for an overview of such studies.
P.36 ‘... Ahmad Hariri and colleagues found that when people were simply asked to label the expressions on faces ...’ See Hariri et al. (2000).
P.38 ‘... Barry Ruback and Daniel Juieng conducted a series of experiments demonstrating precisely this phenomenon in 1997 ...’ For example, Ruback and Juieng (1997).
P.38 ‘... men were found to linger longer in library aisles ...’ See Ruback (1987).
P.38 ‘... In 1977 at the University of Minnesota Dr Mark Snyder and colleagues conducted an ingenious experiment ...’ See Snyder et al. (1977).
P.38–9 ‘... What had initially been reality in the minds of the men had now become reality in the behaviour of the women ...”’ Snyder et al. (1977), 661.
P.39 ‘... the behaviour of the subjects in Stanley Milgram’s experiments ...’ See Milgram (1963).
P.39 ‘... Or what about the behaviour of the students randomly allocated to play the role of guards in the infamous Stanford prison experiment ... ?’ See Zimbardo (1971).
P.39 ‘... people are reluctant to recognise how much of their everyday experience “is determined not by their conscious intentions and deliberate choices ...”’ John Bargh quoted in Buchanan (2009).
P.40 ‘... Dr Robert Rosenthal reports on an experiment in which students were allocated to two classes ...’ See Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968).
P.40 ‘... As Pentland explains, “honest cues are also unusual ...”’ From Pentland (2010).
P.41–2 ‘... women whose ability to frown was inhibited after receiving botox injections reported feeling much happier ...’ See Lewis and Bowler (2009).
P.42 ‘... In fact, research has established that even feelings like loneliness can be catching ...’ See Cacioppo et al. (2009).
P.42 ‘... events that took place in another Massachusetts town, Salem, in 1662 ...’ For a summary see Linder, D.
P.42 ‘... In recent years scientists have discovered specialised mirror neurones in the brain ...’ See Wicker et al. (2003); Morrison et al. (2004).
Myth 6 Think positive and be a winner!
P.46 ‘... Professor Martin Seligman ... has done a great deal of methodical research demonstrating how important an optimistic explanatory style may be in warding off depression ...’ Results summarised in his 2003 book, Authentic Happiness.
P.46 ‘... They found that ... if you suffer from low self-esteem then these affirmations can actually make you feel worse ...’ See Wood et al. (2009).
P.47 ‘... Similarly, independent studies have shown that ... for depressed people the opposite effect is produced ...’ See Davey et al. (2011).
P.47 ‘... To accomplish great things we must dream as well as act ...’ Anatole France: Discours de Réception, Séance De L’académie Française 24th December 1986.
P.47 ‘... Joseph Forgas, a professor of social psychology, reports ...’ Joseph Forgas quoted in ‘Workers in bad moods perform better’ in The Telegraph, 3 November 2009.
P.48 ‘... In 2011, Bettina von Helverson and colleagues conducted a research study that indicates depressed people are also better at sequential decision-making ...’ See Von Helverson et al. (2011).
P.48 ‘... Ronda Muir, who runs a consultancy firm to the legal profession ...’ See Ronda Muir, Law People (www.lawpeopleblog.com).
P.48 ‘... Research conducted at the University of Seattle ...’ See Leu et al. (2011).
P.50 ‘... As Yochelson and Samenow explain ...’ See Yochelson and Samenow (1976).
P.50 ‘... “The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles” ...’ See Walters (1995) for detail.
P.50 ‘... The most extreme version of positive thinking presented in “mind over matter” books like The Secret ...’ See Byrne, R. (2006).
Myth 7 We need to talk ...
P.55 ‘... We have already seen how influential Alex Pentland’s so-called “second channel” of communication can be ...’ See Myth 5, ‘No one can make you feel anything’.
P.55 ‘... As psychologist Elaine Hatfield points out ...’ See Hatfield, Rapson and Yen-Chi (2009).
P.55 ‘... as relationship expert John Gottmann has shown in the lab, any signs of contempt may well prove fatal ...’ See Gottmann (2007).
P.57 ‘Author Alexander Penney reminds us ...’ Quoted by Penney in Self magazine.
P.58 ‘... Research into friendship conducted by Carolyn Weisz and Lisa F. Wood ...’ See Weisz and Wood (2005).
P.59 ‘... “an intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being” ...’ Oord (2010).
P.60 ‘... When we honestly examined our deepest feelings, we realised that our perception of him was that he was basically inadequate ...’ Covey (2004), 17.
P.61 ‘... This was the discovery of Sandra Murray and her colleagues ...’ See Murray et al. (2011).
P.62 ‘... “She did not talk to people as if they were strange hard shells ...”’ Bonner (November 1926).
Myth 8 Whatever your problem, CBT is the answer
P.64 ‘... in the spring of 2008 Stefan Hofmann and Jasper Smits performed a meta-analysis of CBT treatment outcomes ...’ See Hofmann and Smits (2008).
P.64 ‘... However, Dr Peter Kramer rather puts this result into perspective ...’ See Kramer (2008).
P.64–5 ‘... In a post on the website for the British Psychoanalytic Council ...’ See McQueen (2009).
P.65 ‘... Based on a careful literature review conducted in 1992 ...’ See Lambert (1992).
P.65 ‘... In 2001 Bruce Wampold ... supported Lambert’s conclusions ...’ See Wampold (2001).
P.65 ‘More recently the American Psychological Association ...’ See Norcross (2011).
P.67 ‘... A fascinating and well-known finding by Benjamin Libet ...’ See Libet et al. (1983).
P.68 ‘... Susan Blackmore believes that these experiments indicate that “conscious experience takes time to build up ...”’ Blackmore (1998).
P.72 ‘... Shakespeare was right when he said that “Love and reason keep little company together” ...’ William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 1.
P.74 ‘... Lowell was a brilliant man but he got carried away and assumed too much ...’ See Lowell (1906). For an analysis try Strauss (2001).
Myth 9 You can never be too assertive
P.78–9 ‘... One commentator – clearly not a fan of the oriental way – parodies the ethos of sonkeigo as follows ...’ See ‘Things that irk me about Japan 1: Keigo,’ posted on: A Foreigner’s Tale in Japan: a certain type of Ninja Bread (aaroninjapan09.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/things-that-irk-me-about-japan–1-keigo).
P.80 ‘“... Assertive people tend to be seen as less likeable and less friendly than unassertive people ... even kinder and gentler versions of assertiveness are seen as leading to worse impressions ...”’ See Ames and Flynn (2007).
P.80 ‘... These leaders were markedly unassuming in a way that contradicts the stereotype of what an assertive person should look like ...’ See Collins (2001).
Myth 10 Men and women live on different planets
P.83 ‘... Gray says that a lot of what goes wrong in relationships between men and women stems from our failure to appreciate just how different they are ...’ See Gray (2012), 1: 14.
P.84 ‘... There are a number of studies that claim to show contrasts ...’ See, for example, Cahill et al. (2004); Zaidi (2010); Frodi et al. (1977).
P.84 ‘... Cordelia Fine argues that the scientific evidence is ultimately far from convincing ...’ See Fine (2011).
P.84 ‘... Well, not according to researchers Ann Kring and Albert Gordon ...’ See Kring and Gordon (1998).
P.85 ‘... Some additional evidence is provided by another study in which boys were much quicker than girls to turn off the sound of a baby crying ...’ See Fabes et al. (1994).
P.85 ‘... Intriguingly, in one of the most comprehensive reviews of the gender research ...’ See Hyde (2005).
P.86 ‘... As the anthropologist Victor Turner pointed out, culture is a big theatrical production ...’ See Turner (1975).
P.86 ‘... Even the finding that women have a thicker corpus callosum ... has been called into question ...’ See Bishop and Wahlstein (1998).
P.88 ‘... Carl Jung believed that ... within the psyche of every human being there is a masculine and feminine dimension ...’ See Jung (1991).
P.89 ‘... Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism ...’ In Fuller (1845).
Myth 11 Your inner child needs a hug
P.91 ‘... as Cathryn Taylor’s mystical Seven Layers of Healing technique recommends ...’ See Taylor (1991).
P.92 ‘... Shades of the prison house begin to close/Upon the growing Boy ...’ William Wordsworth, ‘Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’, in Quiller-Couch (1919).
P.93 ‘... of the 65 per cent that fell neatly into Thomas and Chess’s four proposed categories, only 40 per cent were “easy” babies ...’ See Thomas, Chess and Birch (1968).
P.93 ‘... The child psychiatrist Jerome Kagan observed that children varied greatly in their level of arousal ...’ See Kagan (1997).
P.94 ‘... Several critics have pointed out ...’ See Yapko (1994).
P.94–5 ‘... With that, the little person dies, looking peaceful and serene ...’ See Tipping (2010), 339.
P.95 ‘... Hence one inner-child guru recommends that in order to heal the child within you must “temporarily or permanently end all relationships in which you are being hurt” ...’ Attributed to DeFoore (undated).
P.95 ‘... Many readers will associate the notion of the Child as a distinct persona with Transactional Analysis ...’ See Berne (2009) or Harris (1995) for a more accessible summary.
P.96 ‘... Neurologist Oliver Sacks presents a more recent case of Mrs O’C ...’ In Sacks (2008).
P.96 ‘... A recent study conducted at Hull University demonstrated that many of us have clear “memories” of childhood events that never actually happened ...’ See Mazzoni, Scoboria and Harvey (2010).
P.97 ‘... In a very comprehensive review conducted in 1987 ...’ See Nash (1987).
P.97 ‘... The researchers concluded that while hypnosis seemed to activate some of the emotional responses of children, they certainly weren’t reliving specific events ...’ See Nash et al. (1986).
Myth 12 You can learn to do anything you want
P.99 ‘... As one NLP website enthuses: If one human can do something then, potentially anyone can ...’ Quoted for example in the ‘Fundamental principles of NLP’ on the pegasus NLP website: www.nlp-now.co.uk.
P.99 ‘... As blogger Diana Hartman points out ...’ Hartman (January 2008).
P.100 ‘... This was the rationale behind Bandler and Grinder’s original analysis of the communication style of three eminent therapists ... and later Milton Erickson ...’ See Bandler and Grinder (1975); Grinder and Bandler (1976).
P.100–101 ‘... ‘If one asks an expert for the rules he or she is using, one will, in effect, force the expert to regress to the level of a beginner ...’ From Dreyfus and Dreyfus (2005).
P.102 ‘... Mice who have their RGS14 gene disabled remember objects better ...’ See Eastman (2010).
P.102 ‘A team from the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group in Barcelona ...’ See Díaz et al. (2008).
P.102 ‘... Dr Melissa Libertus found that pre-schoolers whose superior “number sense” allowed them to judge more accurately ...’ See Libertus, Feigenson and Halberda (2011).
P.104 ‘... Thus Dr Sara Lazar and colleagues found that the brains of regular meditators demonstrated thickening in the cortex ...’ See Hölzela et al. (2010).
P.104 ‘... Similarly, the brains of London taxi drivers generally have larger than average hippocampi ...’ See Maguire (2000).
Myth 13 You’d better get yourself sorted
P.110 ‘... Albert Rothenberg studied the creative processes of 22 Nobel prize-winning scientists ...’ See Rothenberg (1996).
P.110 ‘... [Andreasen] speculates: ‘It is as if the association cortices are working actively, throwing out feelers for possible connections between unrelated capacities ...’ Andreasen (2010).
P.111 ‘... One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and could not sleep. Ideas rose in crowds ...’ Poincaré (2001), 220 (cited by Andreasen 2010).
P.111 ‘... creates an extension of your thinking space and means that “you are using the environment to think as well” ...’ Dr Jay Brand quoted by Carol Smith for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8 November 1999.
P.111 ‘... An alternative recent take on the potential virtues of a messy desk comes from a German research team ...’ See Liu, Smeesters and Trampe (in press).
P.112 ‘... One journalist remarked ...’ Green (2006).
P.112 ‘... in psychoanalyst Karen Horney’s book ...’ See Horney (1991).
P.113 ‘... However, recently researchers at Cambridge University have produced evidence that makes it look as if it may be possible for compulsive behaviours to cause obsessional thoughts ...’ See Gillan et al. (2011).
P.114 ‘... My new desk was beginning to take on the characteristics of a shrine ...’ Gould (2010).
P.114 ‘... Suddenly the breeze started picking up and blowing my papers about ...’ Covey (2004), 253.
P.115 ‘... If neuropsychologist Jerrold Pollak is right ...’ See Green (2006).
P.115 ‘... As David Freedman and Eric Abrahamson ... explain, “It takes extra effort to neaten up a system ...”’ Abrahamson and Freedman (2006).
P.116 ‘... Nothing seems more brutalizing ...’ Hirschhorn (1984), 13.
P.116 ‘... As the sociologist Max Weber warned us, in a world where the principles of instrumental rationality prevail, life is soon reduced to an endless cascade of means and ends ...’ See Gerth and Wright Mills (1970).
P.117 ‘... icy waves of egotistical calculation ...’ See ‘The Communist Manifesto’ (1847) 475 in The Marx-Engels reader edited by Richard Tucker (1978).
P.117–18 ‘... “Almost anything looks pretty neat,” he told her, “if it’s shuffled into a pile” ...’ David Freedman interviewed by Penelope Green for The New York Times in December 2006.
P.118 ‘... It may be true that in space “... no one can hear you scream ...”’ Film poster for Alien by Ridley Scott.
P.118 ‘... the will to system betrays a lack of integrity ...’ Friedrich Nietzsche in Twilight of Idols, Maxims and Arrows, 33.
Myth 14 You are stronger than you know
P.119 ‘... “Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives” ...’ Anthony Robbins courtesy of quotationsbook.com.
P.122 ‘... In one of Shiv’s more unnerving experiments ...’ See Shiv and Fedorikhin (1999).
P.122 ‘... our level of will-power is surprisingly dependent upon our blood-sugar levels ...’ See Gailliot et al. (2007).
P.122 ‘... “Control is a funny thing. It comes and goes ...”’ See Ugel (2011).
P.123 ‘... Wolfgang Stroebe found skipping meals often predicts weight gain ...’ See Stroebe (2008).
P.123 ‘... according to Daniel Wegner, efforts to banish all thoughts of certain foods ends up in more rather than less of them ...’ See Wegner (1994).
P.123 ‘... life’s greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until they achieve ...’ Anthony Robbins quoted in Blaydes (2003), 57.
P.123 ‘... Then roll up your sleeves and start logging those 10,000 hours of deliberate practice Malcolm Gladwell says it’s going to take ...’ See Gladwell (2009), 38.
P.127 ‘... when we find what works for us, we are naturally drawn into a state of “flow” in which we become effortlessly attuned, absorbed and fascinated by the task in hand ...’ See Csikszentmihalyi (2002).
P.128 ‘... This is surely what agony aunt Ann Landers was driving at when she wrote: “Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength ...”’ Ann Landers quoted on www.goodreads.com.
Myth 15 You are a master of the universe!
P.129 ‘... as the author of the bestseller, The Secret keeps reminding us ...’ See Byrne (2006).
P.130 ‘... ‘It’s like having the universe as your catalogue ...’ Joe Vitale in Byrne (2006), 48.
P.133 ‘... “I think I can safely say nobody understands quantum mechanics ...”’ Feynman (1992).
P.134 ‘At the heart of the research run at the PEAR ... lab was endless trials ...’ For a summary of this research see Jahn and Dunne (2005).
P.136 ‘... Psychologist Daryl Bem used the technique of reverse priming to demonstrate what look like precognitive abilities ...’ See Bem (2011).
P.137 ‘... I suggest you have a look at the Global Consciousness project website for yourself ...’ Global Consciousness website: http://noosphere.princeton.edu.
P.138 ‘... This might fit quite well with data reported from Lynne McTaggart’s Intention Experiments ...’ See http://theintentionexperiment.com.
Myth 16 There is no failure, only feedback
P.141 ‘... “there is no failure, only feedback.”’ See www.mymotivational-nlp.com/nlp-presuppositions.
P.142 ‘... Walt Disney is a classic example ...’ See Thomas (1994) for a comprehensive biography.
P.142 ‘... made such a pig’s ear of running the family farm ...’ See Gleik (2004) for a readable biography.
P.144 ‘... a recent comment from Jason Fried, the co-founder of 37 Signals ...’ What Fried actually said at a keynote speech at SXSW 2006 (an annual music, film and interactive conference held in Austin) was: ‘Obscurity is a good thing. You can fail in obscurity. It removes the fear of failure.’
Myth 17 It’s all your parents’ fault
P.148 ‘... Judith Rich Harris, for one, has little time for those who succumb to what she calls The Nurture Assumption ...’ Harris (1999).
P.148 ‘... “The classic case is the poet Philip Larkin, who famously griped ...”’ Harris (2010) No Two Alike (Kindle edition) location 5272.
P.148 ‘... “the home environment and the parent’s style of child-rearing are found to be ineffective in shaping children’s personalities ...”’ Harris (2010) ibid, location 818.
P.148 ‘... the direction of her findings very much agrees with those of other authors like David Cohen ...’ See Cohen (1999).
P.149 ‘... an enigma explored by Harris in her latest book, No Two Alike ...’ See Harris (2010).
P.150 ‘... For example, if we know, as psychologist Diana Baumrind reminds us, that children of dominating, authoritarian parents are prone to lower self-esteem, reactions of fear and aggression and tend to emulate their parents’ coercive behaviours ...’ See Baumrind, Lazelere and Owens (2010).
P.150 ‘... If you still need convincing, consider the salutary case of one study of adopted children ...’ See Tehrani and Mednick (2000); DiLalla and Gottesman (1989).
P.151 ‘... I am also somewhat reassured by developmental psychologist Sandra Scarr’s recent suggestion that it is perhaps only extreme environmental conditions that may tend to affect us, depending on our predisposing vulnerabilities ...’ See Scarr (1992).
P.152 ‘... Reviewing the findings of over 130 studies ...’ See Huang (2010).
P.152 ‘... We know, for example, from Susan Harter’s work how powerfully peer relationships orchestrate the rise and fall of adolescent self-esteem ...’ See Harter (1999); Adler and Adler (1998); Savin-Williams and Berndt (1990).
P.152 ‘... Satisfaction with physical appearance is another strong predictor of self-esteem levels within this age group ...’ See Harter (1990) and (1999).
P.153 ‘... According to Oliver James, just the right blend of strictness and empathy from your folks produces a benign conscience ...’ See James (2007), chapter 3.
P.153 ‘... “Of the large number of correlations the researchers calculated between maternal practices and child outcomes, only 6 per cent ... were statistically significant ...”’ Harris (2010) ibid, location 1682.
P.153 ‘... “Freda Cohen is having a very torrid time with her teenage son ...”’ As found on: www.jokebuddha.com
P.153–4 ‘... Evolutionary psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson found little evidence of the Oedipus complex ...’ See Daly and Wilson (1988).
P.154 ‘... Meanwhile Walter Mischel argued that the flexibility of our moral standards ... weighs against the likelihood that “a unitary moral agency like the superego” even exists ...’ See Mischel (1968).
P.154 ‘... Alison Kirk found that while being a child of divorcees made people more anxious/realistic about the likelihood of relationship breakdown ...’ See Kirk (2002).
P.154 ‘... A “securely” attached infant is confident that their parent will respond to their needs. They seek comfort when required, enjoy being close, but can also tolerate brief separations without undue distress ...’ For an account of the ‘Strange Situation’ test see Bretherton (1992).
P.155 ‘... Cindy Hazan and Philip Shaver found evidence of equivalent attachment styles at work in adults’ romantic relationships ...’ See Hazan and Shaver (1987).
P.156 ‘... One study that followed the attachment behaviours of children from infancy through to maturity found only 17 per cent still demonstrated the same attachment style in their adult romantic relationships ...’ See Steele et al. (1998).
P.156 ‘... Another found correlations of security ratings between parents and current romantic partners of under a third ...’ See Crowell, Fraley and Shaver (1999).
P.156 ‘... the attachment style of adults often wobbles quite dramatically in the wake of stressful life events ...’ See Waters et al. (2000).
P.156 ‘... As Paula Pietromonaco and Lisa Barrett concede, “From this perspective, people do not hold a single set of working models of the self and others ...”’ See Pietromonaco and Barrett (2000).
P.156 ‘... while Mark Baldwin acknowledges that “Within romantic relationships, expectations might then vary significantly ...”’ See Baldwin (1992).
P.157 ‘... There is certainly little evidence to support popular-psychology authors Amir Levine and Rachel Heller’s bold assertion ...’ Levine and Heller (2011).
P.157 ‘... “A baby whose mother is depressed doesn’t expect everyone to be depressed ...”’ See Harris (2010) ibid, location 2670.
P.157 ‘... For example, infant attachment doesn’t necessarily predict how we will relate to our friends ...’ See Saferstein, Neimeyer and Hagans (2005).
P.157 ‘... and Dinero and colleagues discovered that even having a secure attachment style in your mid-twenties was no guarantee of the quality of your interactions with your romantic partner ...’ See Dinero et. al (2008).
P.157 ‘... Crittenden’s Dynamic-Maturational Model ...’ See Crittenden (2006).
P.158 ‘... Bartholomew and Horowitz have managed to reformulate the whole taxonomy of adult attachment ...’ See Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991).
P.159 ‘... In 2006 David Huh and colleagues tracked the behaviour of 500 teenage girls ...’ Huh et al. (2006).
P.160 ‘... “Each parent treats each child so differently that they might as well have been raised in completely different families” ...’ James (2007), 186.
P.161 ‘... Harris claims that differential treatment by their parents accounts for only two per cent of the variance shown between siblings ...’ Harris (2010) ibid, location 1826.
P.161 ‘... What this indicates is that “the parents were reacting to the genetic differences between their children, rather than causing their children to be different ...”’ Harris (2010) ibid, location 1849.
P.161 ‘... “All over the world, teenagers are choosing friends, and even mates, that their parents disapprove of ...”’ Miller (1999).
Myth 18 You can heal your body
P.163 ‘... Guang Yue, an exercise psychologist from Ohio, reports that a group of volunteers who regularly pictured themselves flexing their biceps ... See Ranganathan et. al (2004).
P.164 ‘... There are some intriguing studies suggesting that hypnosis and visualisation can increase your bust size ...’ See, for example, Willard (1977); Williams (1974); Staib and Logan (1977).
P.164 ‘... it appears that hypnosis can help with weight loss ...’ See Cochrane and Friesen (1986); Pittler and Ernst (2005).
P.164 ‘... As the author Barbara Ehrenreich points out, it is all too easy for already sick people to be left feeling like utter failures ...’ See Ehrenreich (2010).
P.164 ‘... “When cancer or any other illness returns, I don’t believe it’s because the doctor didn’t ‘get it all out’, but rather, that the patient has made no mental changes and so just recreates the same illness” ...’ Hay (1984), Heal Your Body. Kindle edition. location 67.
P.165 ‘... consequently she knows that if people are “willing to do the mental work of releasing and forgiving, almost anything can be healed ...”’ Hay (1984), ibid, location 85.
P.165 ‘... According to psychologist Johan Denollet, so-called Type D personalities ...’ See Denollet, Vaes and Brutsaert (2000).
P.166 ‘... those who scored as the most angry and antagonistic in their dealings with others often demonstrated pronounced and ominous thickening of their neck arteries ...’ See Sutin et al. (2010).
P.166 ‘... research conducted by Jenny Choi, Steven Fauce and Rita Effros demonstrated how cortisol inhibits immune cells ability to use telomerase ...’ See Choi, Fauce and Effros (2008).
P.166 ‘... writing about life-enhancing, happy experiences seemed to make no difference ...’ Rosenkranz et al. (2003).
P.167 ‘... placebos themselves tend to produce improvements in approximately 35 per cent of cases ...’ See Hamilton (2008), chapter 2.
P.168 ‘...While it is the case that neuropeptides may indeed stimulate DNA synthesis in certain cell types...’ See Nilsson and Edvinsson (2000) and Reid et al. (1993) for more details.
P.168 ‘... Having conducted a careful and comprehensive analysis of the relevant existing studies ...’ Coyne and Tennen (2010).
Myth 19 You are in control of your life
P.171 ‘... Some ingenious experiments conducted in 2008 by Adam Galinsky and Jennifer Whitson discovered that people deprived of control are far more likely to see images in patterns of random dots ...’ See Whitson and Galinsky (2008).
P.171 ‘... In recent experiments in which participants were asked to estimate the chances of various significant misfortunes befalling them ...’ See Sharot, Korn and Dolan (2011).
P.172 ‘... Ellen Langer conducted a celebrated experiment ... in which she sold lottery tickets to two groups of people ...’ See Langer (1975).
P.172 ‘... The economist Burton Malkiel explains ...’ See Malkiel (1997).
P.173 ‘... Type A personality. This was based on a cluster of common chacteristics that Meyer Friedman and Mike Jordan identified ...’ See Friedman and Rosenman (1959).
P.173 ‘... Now while it turned out that being a Type A per se doesn’t inevitably put you at greater risk of heart disease ...’ According to Haukkala et al. (2010).
P.173 ‘... In fact Richard Lazarus specifically defines stress as what occurs when “individuals perceive that they cannot adequately cope with the demands being made on them or with threats to their well-being” ...’ See Lazarus (1966).
P.173 ‘... Life is difficult and complicated and beyond anyone’s total control ...’ J. K. Rowling at Harvard Commencement address given in 2008.
P.173 ‘... In the 1970s Jonathan Rotter discovered that all of us tend to fall into one of two camps ...’ See Rotter (1975).
P.174 ‘... People with a really strong internal locus are consequently vulnerable to guilt, perfectionism, anxiety and self-recrimination ...’ See ‘The Disadvantages of Internal Locus of Control’ by David Stewart, published on eHow (6 October 2011) (ehow.com/info_8603703_disadvantages-internal-locus-control.html).
P.174 ‘... as Daniel Gilbert has shown us, spectacularly bad at predicting which options will secure our happiness ...’ See Gilbert (2006).
P.175 ‘... This is the essence of Mindfulness training, which is proving to be a very effective antidote for depression and many other psychological problems ...’ See Segal, Williams and Teasdale (2002).
P.175 ‘... As the actress Nicole Kidman has discovered ...’ Interviewed in The Scotsman.
P.175 ‘... Researchers Evan Apfelbaum and Samuel Sommers found that when they deliberately depleted subjects’ reserves of self-control ...’ See Apfelbaum and Sommers (2009).
P.176 ‘... As Sandra Sanger stresses, flexibility at a behavioural and mental level is a hallmark of good mental health ...’ Dr Sandra Sanger, ‘The Illusion of Control’, psychcentral.com, 3 October 2011.
P.176 ‘In his discussion of the “wisdom of spontaneity”, Dr Leon Seltzer argues ...’ Dr Leon F. Seltzer, ‘The Wisdom of Spontaneity’, Psychology Today (www.psychology today.com).
P.176 ‘As Ed Smith argues, chance plays a much bigger role ...’ See Smith (2012).
P.178 ‘... “Think of life as a giant fat cat you’re in charge of ...”’ Randy K. Milholland, Something Positive, 7 November 2011 (www.somethingpositive.net/sp11072011.shtml).
Myth 20 Married bliss: a matter of give and take
P.179 ‘... “Given all that we know about relationships,” enthuses one of the many websites offering advice in this area ...’ Michael Myerscough quoted in The Relationship Gym: Relationship Advice to Get You Fit for Love (www.therelationshipgym.com).
P.179 ‘... Men and women, women and men. It will never work ...’ So insists Isadora Wing, Erica Jong’s narrator, in chapter 16 of her 1973 novel Fear of Flying.
P.179 ‘... Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat To Dreamgirl: A Woman’s Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship ...’ Argov (2002).
P.180 ‘... a book that bears the epic tag-line: “the love she most desires ... the respect he desperately needs” ...’ Eggerichs (2005).
P.180 ‘We are not a million miles away from the utilitarian ethos of Social Exchange Theory ...’ See Roloff (1981).
P.183 ‘... “Unfortunately, approaching a relationship to get your needs met tends to attract partners who require you to give up or alter some part of you ...”’ Paries, R.
P.183 ‘In his famous book, Games People Play, the transactional analyst Eric Berne gives a number of illustrations ...’ See Berne (2010).
P.184 ‘... As John Bowlby explained in 1969 ...’ Bowlby (1969).
P.184 ‘... “You have a responsibility to yourself to get your needs met in your love relationship” ...’ James (2006).
P.185 ‘... In his great treatise on Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote: “Those who love because of utility love because of what is good for themselves ...”’ Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VIII 3.1156a, 14–19.
P.185 ‘... This kind of perception, he suggests, is “gentle, delicate, unintruding, undemanding, able to put itself passively into the nature of things as water gently soaks into crevices ...”’ Maslow (2011), 41.
P.185 ‘... On the other hand, Needs-motivated perception, Maslow warns us, “shapes things in a blustering, over-riding, exploiting, purposeful fashion in the manner of a butcher chopping apart a carcass ...”’ Ibid.
P.186 ‘... True togetherness requires a good dose of Being Cognition, because according to Abraham Maslow it is only under these conditions that empathic fusion becomes possible ...’ Maslow (2011), 105.
P.187 ‘... “The only reward of love is the experience of loving ...”’ Le Carré (1999).
Myth 21 Discover the real you!
P.190 ‘... The humanist psychologist Carl Rogers ... believed that given generous lashings of empathy and unconditional regard, our positive “true” selves will emerge spontaneously ...’ See Rogers (2004).
P.191 ‘... If memory is reconstruction rather than accurate recall ...’ See Loftus and Palmer (1974); Goff and Roediger (1998).
P.192 ‘... “The pastiche personality is a social chameleon ...”’ Gergen (2000), 150.
P.192 ‘... Spare a thought for those brave pioneers of science recruited by Dan Ariely and George Loewenstein for their experiments into the impact of sexual arousal and decision-making ...’ Ariely and Loewenstein (2006).
P.193 ‘... just one of a number indicating that people give different responses to personality questionnaires over time ...’ Boyce, Wood and Powdthavee (2012); Ramírez-Esparza et al. (2004).
P.193 ‘... “I am large. I contain multitudes ...”’ Walt Whitman, Song of Myself.
P.194 ‘... “We are made up of many selves, identifying with some and rejecting others ...”’ Hal and Sidra Stone’s website is: www.delos-inc.com.
P.194 ‘... You might want to try it for yourself. It could be a revelation ...’ You can find a friendly American ‘inner’ family therapist who will tell you how at the following address: www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-vS_E-nY1w.
P.194 ‘... As Professor Edward Sampson of California State University points out ...’ Edward Sampson quoted by Mitchell Stephens (1992).
P.195 ‘... in a recent TED talk the philosopher and journalist Julian Baggini drew on the idea of the brain as a self-evolving neural network ...’ (www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/julian_baggini_is_there_a_real_you.html).
P.196 ‘... As he explained, “Each and every characteristic within the personality has a position, status and value in both organizations ...”’ Angyal quoted in Frick (1984).
P.198 ‘... gave an example of one patient ...’ Maureen O’Hara quoted by Mitchell Stephens (1992).
Myth 22 Make every second count
P.200 ‘... Psychobabble is encouraging us all to become “Type As” in our attitudes towards time ...’ According to an anonymous article ‘What is the Type A Personality?’ posted on www.essortment.com.
P.200 ‘... Between 1998 and 2005 the number of people working over 48 hours a week doubled ...’ See Gillan (2005).
P.201 ‘... Professor Carey Cooper points out that ... working over 45 hours a week has been consistently linked to all manner of physical and psychological ill effects ...’ Carey Cooper, quoted in Gillan (2005).
P.202 ‘... They also happen to be those who, from a developmental point of view, have had most need of it ...’ See: Ginsberg (2007); Pellegrini (2009).
P.202 ‘... According to a survey conducted by the University of Michigan, children have just half as much free time as they did 30 years ago ...’ See Klevmarken and Stafford (1999).
P.202 ‘... Increasingly, kids from middle-income homes spend more and more time in adult-led activities ...’ See Elkind (2008).
P.202 ‘... Sandra Hofferth sees them affected by the same “time crunch” as their parents ...’ Quoted in ‘The joy of doing nothing’ published by Scholastic (www.scholastic.com/resources/article/the-joys-of-doing-nothing).
P.202 ‘... “As a society,” claims Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, “we have talked ourselves into believing that we have to make every moment count ...”’ Ibid.
P.202 ‘... Alvin Rosenfeld reports that: “... many overscheduled kids are anxious, angry and burned out ...”’ Ibid.
P.202 ‘... A study which examined the performance of pre-schoolers who received extra reading tuition before starting school ...’ See Smith (2001).
P.202 ‘... the opposite of play is not work. It’s depression...’ See Professor Brian Sutton-Smith in his book The Ambiguity of Play (2001).
P.203 ‘... Gary Chick’s observation that: “Playfulness has been replaced by aggressiveness ...”’ Gary Chick quoted in ‘The Power of Play’. Interviewed by Hara Marano for Psychology Today (www.psychologytoday.com).
P.203 ‘... Self-confessed slacker Marc Allen claims ...’ See Marc Allen: ‘How being a laid-back Type Z can make you happy, healthy, wealthy and wise’. Blog published on New World Library (www.newworldlibrary.com/NewWorldLibraryUnshelved).
P.203 ‘... Psychologist Kathy Hirsh-Pasek concurs that doing nothing is far from being a “waste” of time ...’ See Hirsh-Pasek et al. (2003).
P.204 ‘... Play has been linked to cognitive flexibility, better emotional processing, superior memory and the enhancement of problem-solving capacities ...’ See The American Journal of Play for a number of articles on these subjects, as well as the extensive reference list provided on the National Institute for Play website (www.nifplay.org/biblio_fin.html).
The Art of Play by Adam and Alee Blatner also has useful material on the benefits of play for adults as well as children.
Dr Stuart Brown’s TED talk on ‘Serious Play’ is also instructive (www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html).
P.204 ‘... Play “refreshes and recharges us. It restores our optimism ...” claims Hara Marano ...’ In ‘The Power of Play’, posted on Psychology Today (www.psychologytoday.com).
P.204 ‘... among Lewis Terman’s cohort of gifted children born in the 1920s, those who played the most are more likely to be alive today ...’ Cited by Hara Marano ‘The Power of Play’, Psychology Today (www.psychologytoday.com).
P.204 ‘... Cindy Aron detects a “deep ambivalence” towards play ...’ Aron (2001).
P.205 ‘... This is precisely what Nadine Stair tried to stress in a poem written at the very end of her life, in her 85th year ...’ See ‘If I Had My Life to Live Over’ by Nadine Stair.
P.206 ‘... The Greek historian Herodotus believed ...’ Herodotus: The Histories. Book 2, chapter 173.
P.206 ‘... as the journalist Sydney Harris reminds us ...’ Writing in his syndicated column Strictly Personal which ran between 1944 and 1986, Harris wrote: ‘The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it’.
Myth 23 We must all strive to be happy
P.208 ‘... happy people tend to be more selfish than their less happy but more even-handed peers ...’ For studies exploring the ‘dark side’ of happiness see Tan and Forgas (2010); Forgas and East (2008); Deldin and Levin (1986); Johnson and Tversky (1983); Oishi, Diener and Lucas (2007).
P.209 ‘... the journalist Marta Zaraska cites several studies ...’ See Zaraska (2012).
P.209 ‘... Being too happy, it turns out, may well make you more racist and sexist! ...’ See Bodenhausen, Kramer and Süsser (1994) and Forgas (2011).
P.209 ‘After the induction of a happy mood ...’ See Bodenhausen, Kramer and Süsser (1994).
P.209 ‘... the most disappointed were those who had invested the most emotionally and practically in their preparations ...’ See Schooler, Ariely and Loewenstein (2003).
P.209 ‘... Professor Iris Mauss ... discovered that people who rated happiness as particularly important to them were likely to feel especially lonely after experiencing stressful life events ...’ Mauss et al. (2011).
P.210 ‘... Introspection and self-analysis is consistently associated with lower levels of self-reported happiness ...’ Lyubomirsky and Lepper (1999); Schooler, Ariely and Loewenstein (2003).
P.210 ‘... Ask yourself if you are happy, and you cease to be so ...’ John Stewart Mill in chapter 5 of his autobiography entitled A Crisis in My Mental History (see Stewart Mill, 1960, 105.)
P.210 ‘... This supports Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s observations ...’ Csikszentmihalyi (1990).
P.211 ‘... we also have a personal happiness set-point to which we have a tendency to return ...’ See Lyubomirsky (2010).
P.212 ‘... This, Hecht points out, “requires a lot of difficult work ...”’ See Hecht (2008), 10.
P.212 ‘... The philosopher Robert Nozick designed just such a thought experiment ...’ See ‘The Experience Machine’ in Nozick (1977).
P.213 ‘... John F. Kennedy summarised the Greek position as “the full use of your powers along lines of excellence ...”’ John F. Kennedy, Remarks to Student Participants in the White House Seminar in Government, 27 August 1963.
P.214 ‘... with the notable exception of pioneers like Jonathan Haidt ...’ For example, Haidt (2012).
P.214 ‘... novelist Ayn Rand’s vision of happiness as “that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values ...”’ See Atlas Shrugged, part three, chapter seven: This is John Galt Speaking.
Epilogue
P.217 ‘... Consider the unfortunate lorry driver ...’ Sat Nav stories taken from ‘Sat Nav Disasters: Mirror.co.uk Top 10’ (25 March 2009) published on www.mirror.co.uk.
P.218 ‘... as Voltaire cautioned ... certainty is absurd ...’ Voltaire in a letter to Frederick II of Prussia in 1767.
P.218 ‘... The biological anthropologist Matt Cartmill once compared ...’ Quoted on Matt Cartmill’s page on the Boston University Anthropology Department website (www.bu.edu/anthrop/people/faculty/m-cartmill).
P.219 ‘... “drift forward into a splendid mystery”’ Edwin Hubbell Chapin, www.quotationpark.com/topics/future%20state.html.