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annyway47 's review for:
Expectations: an informative and reliable, yet readable non-fiction book about willpower by a Stanford professor.
Reality: lame jokes, some questionable science, and a bunch of pretty dumb-sounding statements I would be comfortable hearing from my grandma in the kitchen, but not from a Stanford professor in a non-fiction book. What Kelly McGonigal did here to me felt so unscientific as to be borderline anti-scientific.
THE BAD
Me, reading The Willpower Instinct:
Oh, boy, The Willpower Instinct was not for me.
SCIENCE? Okay, I know this is the THIRD time I'm mentioning this in my review, but: I don't understand how a STANFORD PROFESSOR can seriously and REPEATEDLY do this:
1) discuss a study with whole 24 human participants for half a chapter as if it's completely legit and nothing calls for caution when using its results;
2) cite dozens of studies and yada yada through the specifics:
Huh? How big were the improvements? What exactly was improved? How "significantly" was the risk reduced? She did this ALL THE TIME and it drove me crazy. What's the point of citing studies if you do it like this?
Instead of giving us the data, she just gave her own assessment of it, and given her loss of credibility, it was just irritating and insubstantial. Most of the time she forgot to mention sample sizes, the parameters that were "improved", the method of measuring said improvement, and the size of it, too. UGH.
Life's too short to provide those details, but there was enough space to include a whole chapter on the debunked "marshmallow test" and a 100th rendition of the story of Phineas Gage.
3) support the merits of a breathing exercise by mentioning one dude found it helpful to "make better decisions under pressure". What are "better" decisions? Why is he the judge of them being better? Who is this dude anyway and why does his private opinion matter? If the benefits of an exercise have not been studied or measured, okay. But be upfront about it - no need to bullshit me with TV-advert style reasoning to support it instead.
4) cite a study; interpret its results in a way that's convenient to the point she is trying to make; pretend this is the only interpretation and the true reason behind such results
Kelly McGonigal then goes on to lament how humans are dumber than chimps. But I have a few questions here. What exactly were these people asked and how did they express their preference? A number of things could have happened. One, they could have said that generally speaking, 2 is better than 6, but didn't mean it as a personal preference. Maybe they don't like M&Ms, have recently eaten something sweet or think eating more sweets is unhealthy.
Two, there's a major difference between humans and chimps in this situation: people can easily get as many M&Ms as they want at any time and they know it. There's no scarcity, so there's no need for willpower. Chimps can't do that. This is exactly the reason why "the marshmallow test" was debunked. This seems to me like the most obvious and likely explanation for such a result, but McGonigal mopes the human's inferior willpower for an entire chapter without mentioning any other possibilities. This enraged me so much!
It's not a surprising result, because if you ask Americans if they are stressed, of course, they'll say they are. The terrorist attacks, which accounted for less than 0.01% of deaths and 35.6% of media coverage, have little to do with that. But McGonigal assumes no critical thinking in her readers and just bullshits away!
HUMOR? A simple fact: the author made a lot of jokes in this book. I found none of them funny, on the contrary, they got on my nerves, seemed lame and "trying too hard". So their abundance really made reading The Willpower Instinct a chore. To give you an example, these are taken from a chapter on how and why willpower was formed in humans:
Major cringe. I guess she tried to make this book light and entertaining, but I don't find anthropology so boring as to require stupid puns in every other sentence.
PLAIN NONSENSE. I know this book isn't an academic work. But when a professor uses scientific terms, I expect them to be used appropriately, and not like this:
She writes this stuff as if the words "evolution", "instinct", "stress", "self" have no actual meaning. Stress is a response, not an instinct. Yes, evolution is about evolving, not building from scratch, genius. No, evolution can't be sped up within the lifespan of a single individual. And don't get me started on this "multiple selves" stuff.
THE GOOD
Some ideas were interesting, I guess?
Verdict: a waste of time. Garbage. The execution killed the book completely. I've read so many good, interesting and fun non-fiction books that reading this one felt intolerable.
Reality: lame jokes, some questionable science, and a bunch of pretty dumb-sounding statements I would be comfortable hearing from my grandma in the kitchen, but not from a Stanford professor in a non-fiction book. What Kelly McGonigal did here to me felt so unscientific as to be borderline anti-scientific.
THE BAD
Me, reading The Willpower Instinct:
Oh, boy, The Willpower Instinct was not for me.
SCIENCE? Okay, I know this is the THIRD time I'm mentioning this in my review, but: I don't understand how a STANFORD PROFESSOR can seriously and REPEATEDLY do this:
1) discuss a study with whole 24 human participants for half a chapter as if it's completely legit and nothing calls for caution when using its results;
2) cite dozens of studies and yada yada through the specifics:
After two months of the treatment, they showed improvements in attention and the ability to ignore distractions.
This added one hour a night to their quality sleep time, which in turn significantly reduced the risk of drug use relapse.
Huh? How big were the improvements? What exactly was improved? How "significantly" was the risk reduced? She did this ALL THE TIME and it drove me crazy. What's the point of citing studies if you do it like this?
Instead of giving us the data, she just gave her own assessment of it, and given her loss of credibility, it was just irritating and insubstantial. Most of the time she forgot to mention sample sizes, the parameters that were "improved", the method of measuring said improvement, and the size of it, too. UGH.
Life's too short to provide those details, but there was enough space to include a whole chapter on the debunked "marshmallow test" and a 100th rendition of the story of Phineas Gage.
3) support the merits of a breathing exercise by mentioning one dude found it helpful to "make better decisions under pressure". What are "better" decisions? Why is he the judge of them being better? Who is this dude anyway and why does his private opinion matter? If the benefits of an exercise have not been studied or measured, okay. But be upfront about it - no need to bullshit me with TV-advert style reasoning to support it instead.
4) cite a study; interpret its results in a way that's convenient to the point she is trying to make; pretend this is the only interpretation and the true reason behind such results
The chimpanzees expressed a preference (six M&Ms is better than two) and then acted on it. They maximized their gains with very little personal cost (a mere 120 seconds’ delay). The humans’ choices, on the other hand, were irrational. Before the challenge began, they clearly stated that they preferred six treats to two. But as soon as they had to wait two minutes to triple their snacks, their preferences reversed more than 80 percent of the time. They deprived themselves of what they really wanted for the fleeting satisfaction of a quick fix.
Kelly McGonigal then goes on to lament how humans are dumber than chimps. But I have a few questions here. What exactly were these people asked and how did they express their preference? A number of things could have happened. One, they could have said that generally speaking, 2 is better than 6, but didn't mean it as a personal preference. Maybe they don't like M&Ms, have recently eaten something sweet or think eating more sweets is unhealthy.
Two, there's a major difference between humans and chimps in this situation: people can easily get as many M&Ms as they want at any time and they know it. There's no scarcity, so there's no need for willpower. Chimps can't do that. This is exactly the reason why "the marshmallow test" was debunked. This seems to me like the most obvious and likely explanation for such a result, but McGonigal mopes the human's inferior willpower for an entire chapter without mentioning any other possibilities. This enraged me so much!
A 2010 national survey by the American Psychological Association found that 75 percent of people in the United States experience high levels of stress. It’s not surprising, given the events of the last decade, from terrorist attacks and flu epidemics to environmental disasters, natural disasters, unemployment, and near economic collapse.
It's not a surprising result, because if you ask Americans if they are stressed, of course, they'll say they are. The terrorist attacks, which accounted for less than 0.01% of deaths and 35.6% of media coverage, have little to do with that. But McGonigal assumes no critical thinking in her readers and just bullshits away!
HUMOR? A simple fact: the author made a lot of jokes in this book. I found none of them funny, on the contrary, they got on my nerves, seemed lame and "trying too hard". So their abundance really made reading The Willpower Instinct a chore. To give you an example, these are taken from a chapter on how and why willpower was formed in humans:
Imagine this: It is 100,000 years ago, and you are a top-of-the-line homo sapiens of the most recently evolved variety. Yes, take a moment to get excited about your opposable thumbs, erect spine, and hyoid bone (which allows you to produce some kind of speech, though I’ll be damned if I know what it sounds like).
... think twice before saying “That loincloth makes you look fat.”
... cutting-edge stone tools.
... to care for you if you get sick or injured—no more hunting and gathering for you.
... minding your own early hominid business.
Major cringe. I guess she tried to make this book light and entertaining, but I don't find anthropology so boring as to require stupid puns in every other sentence.
PLAIN NONSENSE. I know this book isn't an academic work. But when a professor uses scientific terms, I expect them to be used appropriately, and not like this:
Evolution prefers to add on to what it’s created, rather than start from scratch.
... the following meditation technique will get the blood rushing to your prefrontal cortex—the closest we can get to speeding up evolution.
Willpower is a biological instinct, like stress, that evolved to help us protect ourselves from ourselves.
... we’ve seen that the human mind is not one unified self, but multiple selves who compete for control. There’s the self who wants immediate gratification and the self who remembers your bigger goals. There’s your present self, who may or may not seem to have much in common with your future self. As if that weren’t a crowded enough crew, it turns out that you have a few other people living in your head too.
She writes this stuff as if the words "evolution", "instinct", "stress", "self" have no actual meaning. Stress is a response, not an instinct. Yes, evolution is about evolving, not building from scratch, genius. No, evolution can't be sped up within the lifespan of a single individual. And don't get me started on this "multiple selves" stuff.
Neuroeconomists—scientists who study what the brain does when we make decisions—have discovered that the self-control system and our survival instincts don’t always conflict. In some cases, they cooperate to help us make good decisions.
THE GOOD
Some ideas were interesting, I guess?
Verdict: a waste of time. Garbage. The execution killed the book completely. I've read so many good, interesting and fun non-fiction books that reading this one felt intolerable.