Amanda Montell is great at explaining academic concepts by applying them to our everyday lives. She’s clearly thoughtful, observant and curious which is why I find myself drawn to her work. She is also an eloquent and empathetic writer, though I think her style sometimes edges into a little too flowery for my personal tastes. The line of text she asked an AI to generate in her voice did have me laugh out loud!
Pay attention to “Notes on” in the subtitle because this book (like Cultish) is half memoir. This time going in I was ready for that, and it works much better with the audiobook being read by her. You are going to learn all about her mother, past boyfriends, current boyfriend and career. Then the science portion is made up of books and occasional research papers she’s read. I’d heard of most of the concepts before, but I enjoyed her applying them to life in such a relatable way.
The book does begin to answer some of my growing why are people like this?! questions of recent years.
She covers:
Are You My Mother, Taylor Swift? A note on the halo effect
I Swear I Manifested This A note on proportionality bias
A Toxic Relationship Is Just a Cult of One A note on the sunk cost fallacy
The Shit-Talking Hypothesis A note on zero-sum bias
What It’s Like to Die Online A note on survivorship bias
Time to Spiral A note on the recency illusion
The Scammer Within A note on overconfidence bias
Haters Are My Motivators A note on the illusory truth effect
Sorry I’m Late, Must Be Mercury in Retrograde A note on confirmation bias
Nostalgia Porn A note on declinism
The Life-Changing Magic of Becoming a Mediocre Crafter A note on the IKEA effect
I thought the chapters on the halo effect and sunk cost fallacy the most engaging.
The halo effect because celebrity workshop is out of fucking control these days in a way that completely baffles me. It’s like everyone in the Instagram comments of a celebrity has forgotten that they’re just a person. Just because they’re really good at one specific thing doesn’t mean they have authority over anything else or that they must offer their opinions on the latest world conflict or crisis which they likely know nothing more about than the average man in the street! And if they give into pressure and do they get piled on from by at least half the comments for being wrong, which doesn’t encourage anyone to use whatever reach they have for good.
I see this happen all the time. Jameela Jamil is an interesting example (and they talked about this on her podcast) because she does nothing but tell her followers and the world that she is merely a person and freely admits she’s often wrong about things, but it doesn’t appear to make a difference. A couple of weeks ago her comments all turned because she posted a photo of herself looking a little thinner than usual (after some serious health issues) in a tight black dress doing a model pose (she was a model). This meant she was “betraying” all she stands for regarding diet culture and body neutrality. Body image and weight is still such a thorny issue for women, I even felt myself gave some kind of reaction to it that I’ve not unpicked yet.
We just watched Monty Python’s The Life of Brianyesterday actually, and it still feels ridicously applicable to modern life!
The sunk cost fallacy is one I think about most days (I have a friend suffering a toxic work environment where I feel this cognitive bias is holding her there for too long with too much stress), none of this was new but in this chapter Amanda shares on a relationship she had been the ages of 18-25 with a much older man. I also wasted those years of my life in a relationship with a much older man, so I found some of this very relatable (especially losing weekends with friends, the moodiness and all ex girlfriends being talked of as traitors). Although I don’t think sunk cost fallacy was my reason for sticking out 7 years, I knew it would never work but he knew how to manipulate and use guilt, and my inexperience and fear of conflict, to get me to stay.
However, I did find the related concept of diachronic misfortune interesting, that is how our choices may be reflected in the story we tell ourselves. As the protagonist in our own story we expect to make good choices for good outcomes, but that is not always the case. Although again, in my own bad relationship I remember always being aware I was making a bad choice, but I can think back to times I have definitely been guilty of this in other situations.
The idea of the IKEA Effect also amused me, this is that we tend to “over value” things we make ourselves. That is we would pay more for something we put together ourselves versus something premade of comparable materials, like IKEA furniture. Amanda’s example is a cushion she made for herself, I as a crafted I have a million examples I can think of (this website is one)! Though I’m not completely convinced by the study this is based on, I need to read it properly, but I’m confused by what they are measuring as “value.”
I listened to this on audio which means I don’t have many notes to reflect back on, and perhaps I didn’t absorb it as well as I may have had I read it. When I finished it felt like three stars but as I’ve been writing this review and I realised it’s set a few new seeds in my mind, and I think I can call this 4 stars for adding something to my understanding of myself and the world.
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