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Title details for Situations Matter by Sam Sommers - Available

Situations Matter

Understanding How Context Transforms Your World

by Sam Sommers
Joshua Swanson
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
An entertaining and engaging" exploration of the invisible forces influencing your life-and how understanding them can improve everything you do.

The world around you is pulling your strings, shaping your innermost instincts and your most private thoughts. And you don't even realize it.

Every day and in all walks of life, we overlook the enormous power of situations, of context in our lives. That's a mistake, says Sam Sommers in his provocative new book. Just as a museum visitor neglects to notice the frames around paintings, so do people miss the influence of ordinary situations on the way they think and act. But frames- situations- do matter. Your experience viewing the paintings wouldn't be the same without them. The same is true for human nature.

In Situations Matter, Sommers argues that by understanding the powerful influence that context has in our lives and using this knowledge to rethink how we see the world, we can be more effective at work, at home, and in daily interactions with others. He describes the pitfalls to avoid and offers insights into making better decisions and smarter observations about the world around us.


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  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    December 29, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781101978757
      • File size: 239816 KB
      • Duration: 08:19:36

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Psychology professor Sam Sommers has gathered together provocative studies that examine how the context of situations influences our behavior and our self-concept. He jettisons the idea of an authentic self, arguing that our identities are flexible. Joshua Swanson's lively performance has a dash of the slightly nerdy professor. He engages the listener's attention as Sommers ranges from a frightening discussion of how crowd conformity does more to contribute to genocide and war crimes than do a few bad apples to lighter but equally fascinating data on how we are more likely to marry someone in the neighborhood. Sommers includes amusing anecdotes from his life with small children to show how he still misjudges situations even when he knows better. Swanson perfectly captures that humorous self-deprecation. A.B. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 19, 2011
      With a conversational, laid-back tone and a penchant for storytelling, Tufts University psychology professor Sommers explores the power of context, its ability to “shape our private sense of self, color our notion of the differences between men and women, determine who we love and who we hate.” Most potently, Sommers investigates the notion that “when surrounded by others, we become different people than when we’re on our own.” He finds context responsible for why we feel safer (but more impotent) in crowds, why being reminded of gender stereotypes makes girls do poorly on math tests, and how your apartment building’s floor plan determines how many dates you get. In prose peppered with pop culture anecdotes and stories from his own life, Sommers keeps reader engaged as he unpacks how self-perception affects performance and how mastery of the unspoken norms that govern situations will “alter the way you think about human nature, thereby making you a more effective person...and navigate your social universe more shrewdly.” The book shares its heritage with the bestselling Influence by Robert B. Cialdini. It trots out similar studies and cases, with only a slight twist on Cialdini’s original thesis about power and politics. With its softer approach toward deploying these techniques (referencing awareness more than power) and its personal references, Sommers’s book is the lighter, more pleasurable version.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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