The Hidden Brain - How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives

Shankar Vedantam

Spiegel & Grau

2010

288 páginas

9h 36m

ISBN-10: 0385525214

Most of us would agree that there’s a clear—and even obvious—connection between the things we believe and the way we behave. But what if our actions are driven not by our conscious values and beliefs but by hidden motivations we’re not even aware of?

The “hidden brain” is Shankar Vedantam’s shorthand for a host of brain functions, emotional responses, and cognitive processes that happen outside our conscious awareness but have a decisive effect on how we behave. The hidden brain has its finger on the scale when we make all our most complex and important decisions: It decides whom we fall in love with, whether we should convict someone of murder, and which way to run when someone yells “Fire!” It explains why we can become riveted by the story of a single puppy adrift on the ocean but are quickly bored by a story of genocide. The hidden brain can also be deliberately manipulated to convince people to vote against their own interests, or even become suicide terrorists. But the most disturbing thing is that it does all this without our knowing.

Resenhas (1)

4 (Muito bom)

Como no podcast, o autor sabe trazer casos concretos para explicar conceitos fundamentais da natureza humana.

Alguns trechos especialmente da parte política ficaram um pouco cansativos para leitores de outros países, pois o foco era o contexto americano. De qualquer forma, não atrapalha o fantástico livro.

No início pensei estar lendo mais um livro sobre o nosso viés cognitivo, mas tal impressão passou rápido, mesmo já tendo lido vários livros sobre o tema, este livro tem um enfoque especial, diferenciado e aprofundado.

Recomendo muito a leitura.