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 |
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... parent and child . When it comes to their children , research documents that the best- case scenario dominates parents ' porthole on both the present and future . Parents strive , consciously or not , to keep the worst that their ...
... parents.23 Respondents reported on their personal parenting skills , the behav- iors of their children , and their views of American families in general . In reviewing the data , it becomes clear that parents ' considerations of the ...
... parents ' watch . Other surveys have researched parents ' visions of their children's fu- tures . Here , too , parents seem unshakably riveted to the best - case porthole on the world . Research shows , for example , that when parents ...
... parents in best-case vision. For example, the authors start each chapter with a list of the joyful benchmarks parents can expect with each passing month of infancy and each passing year of child- hood. To cite just a few of these ...
... parents on interpreting the score , directing parents to all but ignore a low rating : Some of the healthiest babies I have seen are in a state of quiet alertness at five minutes ( after birth ) , but they lose points on their Apgar for ...
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 |