Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the WorstUniversity of Chicago Press, 15.9.2008 - 336 sivua People—especially Americans—are by and large optimists. They're much better at imagining best-case scenarios (I could win the lottery!) than worst-case scenarios (A hurricane could destroy my neighborhood!). This is true not just of their approach to imagining the future, but of their memories as well: people are better able to describe the best moments of their lives than they are the worst. “In Never Saw It Coming, Karen Cerulo argues that in American society there is a ‘positive symmetry,’ a tendency to focus on and exaggerate the best, the winner, the most optimistic outcome and outlook. Thus, the conceptions of the worst are underdeveloped and elided. Naturally, as she masterfully outlines, there are dramatic consequences to this characterological inability to imagine and prepare for the worst, as the failure to heed memos leading up to both the 9/11 and NASA Challenger disasters, for instance, so painfully reminded us.”--Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Swarthmore College “Katrina, 9/11, and the War in Iraq—all demonstrate the costliness of failing to anticipate worst-case scenarios. Never Saw It Coming explains why it is so hard to do so: adaptive behavior hard-wired into human cognition is complemented and reinforced by cultural practices, which are in turn institutionalized in the rules and structures of formal organizations. But Karen Cerulo doesn’t just diagnose the problem; she uses case studies of settings in which people effectively anticipate and deal with potential disaster to describe structural solutions to the chronic dilemmas she describes so well. Never Saw It Coming is a powerful contribution to the emerging fields of cognitive and moral sociology.”--Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University |
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... involved in the act of thinking , one thing becomes quite clear : some of the human brain's standard operations are char- acterized by asymmetry . To illustrate this point , let us briefly consider the trail of a thought from beginning ...
... Involved? Is it sufficient to frame this inquiry in the fields of culture and cognition? No doubt some would argue that the inability to envision the worst is more strongly rooted in emotions. According to some, fear of the worst, as ...
... involved in the surveillance of a group of suspected Islamic terrorists. Based on his team's discoveries, Kurtz “fired off a lengthy memo raising the possibility that bin Laden might be using U.S. flight schools to infiltrate the ...
... involved in one's entry to the sexual arena, research shows that disasters and catastrophes are typically the furthest things from participants' minds. Two-thirds of U.S. teenagers have sexual intercourse by their eighteenth birthday ...
... involved long-term or catastrophic health care, locating a place to live, or planning for amendments to their current living situation.62 According to Matthew Greenwald, the author of the AARP re- port, “The lack of forethought does not ...
Sisältö
1 | |
17 | |
3 Practicing Positive Asymmetry | 72 |
4 Positive Asymmetry and the Subjective Side of Scientific Measurement | 122 |
5 Being Labeled the Worst Real in Its Consequences? | 139 |
6 Exceptions to the Rule | 164 |
7 Emancipating Structures and Cognitive Styles | 193 |
8 Can Symmetrical Vision Be Achieved? | 233 |
Acknowledgments | 344 |
1 Whats the Worst That Could Happen? | 1 |
2 The Breadth and Scope of Positive Asymmetry | 17 |
3 Practicing Positive Asymmetry | 72 |
4 Positive Asymmetry and the Subjective Side of Scientific Measurement | 122 |
5 Being Labeled the Worst Real in Its Consequences? | 139 |
6 Exceptions to the Rule | 164 |
7 Emancipating Structures and Cognitive Styles | 193 |
Notes | 245 |
References | 279 |
Index | 315 |
Contents | 342 |
8 Can Symmetrical Vision Be Achieved? | 233 |
Notes | 245 |
References | 279 |
Index | 315 |
Muita painoksia - Näytä kaikki
Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst Karen A. Cerulo Rajoitettu esikatselu - 2008 |
Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst Karen A. Cerulo Esikatselu ei käytettävissä - 2006 |
Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst Karen A. Cerulo Esikatselu ei käytettävissä - 2006 |