Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the WorstUniversity of Chicago Press, 15 Sep 2008 - 336 halaman 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 |
Dari dalam buku
Hasil 1-5 dari 86
... organization”—is the factor that truly endows emotions with social import, particularly at the collective level.38 The ... organizations, and reigning ideologies.40 When we consider the cultural side of emotions, we realize that they may ...
... organizations , and formal education , these groups at- tempt to foreground both the worst - case scenarios of unprotected sex and strategies for avoiding those scenarios.44 But because positive asymmetry is such a well - entrenched ...
... Organizations such as the American Prosecutors Research Institute, MADD, and SAMHSA (an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services) have done much to raise the public consciousness to the worst-case scenarios of drunk driving ...
... Organizations. Thus far, we have examined the ways in which positive asymmetry can influence individual cognition. We ... organizational sociologists), a fascinating argument emerges. Scholars con- tend that the structure of a small group ...
... organizations are more complex than small groups , they hold one important thing in common with such groups . Most organizations also de- velop a culture — what sociologists refer to as an organizational culture — a set of values ...
Isi
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 |
Edisi yang lain - Lihat semua
Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst Karen A. Cerulo Pratinjau terbatas - 2008 |
Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst Karen A. Cerulo Pratinjau tidak tersedia - 2006 |
Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst Karen A. Cerulo Pratinjau tidak tersedia - 2006 |