Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose |  | Author: Deirdre Barrett
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Seller: athena_books
Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 42610
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 216
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 039306848X
Dewey Decimal Number: 155.7
EAN: 9780393068481
ASIN: 039306848X
Publication Date: February 22, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A Harvard psychologist explains how our once-helpful instincts get hijacked in our garish modern world. Our instincts—for food, sex, or territorial protection— evolved for life on the savannahs 10,000 years ago, not in today’s world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects, from candy to pornography to atomic weapons—that gratify these gut instincts with often-dangerous results. Animal biologists coined the term “supernormal stimuli” to describe imitations that appeal to primitive instincts and exert a stronger pull than real things, such as soccer balls that geese prefer over eggs. Evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett applies this concept to the alarming disconnect between human instinct and our created environment, demonstrating how supernormal stimuli are a major cause of today’s most pressing problems, including obesity and war. However, Barrett does more than show how unfettered instincts fuel dangerous excesses. She also reminds us that by exercising self-control we can rein them in, potentially saving ourselves and civilization. 55 illustrations
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
 Highly recommended April 9, 2010
Bookworm
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
A fascinating discussion of how our created environment diverts our instincts from their natural targets--friendship, nurturance, safety--and diverts them toward TV laugh-tracks, stuffed animals, and horror films. The book's premise is that if we stop and reflect on why we're pulled by these things, we regain our ability to chose or reject them freely. The concept of "supernormal stimuli" provides a sharp lens to bring into focus the apparent paradoxes of our modern world. Well-written, interesting, full of important, practical advice.
SUPER April 4, 2010
Curt Howard
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Super normal stimuli are anything which pull an instinct more strongly than whatever the instinct evolved to seek out. Evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett revives Nobel-prize-winning animal behaviorist Niko Tinbergen's concept and builds on his original insight, applying it to modern human problems. Animals encountered supernormal stimuli only in experiments, but humans are making our own all the time now. The book makes the case that supernormal stimuli--or our reactions to them--are the biggest problems faced by affluent societies. However, becoming aware of the concept could enlist our reasoning abilities in making wiser decisions than we are now. The book is packed with solid science but it's also entertaining and illustrated with spot-on New Yorker cartoons. Best new idea I've read since The Selfish Gene.
Supernormal Stimuli - fascinating book May 7, 2010
Amex
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I'm an avid popular science pleasure reader, so I ordered this book right after hearing the author on the radio. I'm so glad I did!
It is a fascinating book, very well-written. The concepts are explained in a way that makes them easy to grasp. The animal to human metaphors are truly illuminating. The main point of the book is supernormal stimuli, which are exaggerated versions of natural stimuli to which there are existing instinctual responses. Barrett discusses how our evolved instincts are overwhelmed by technological advances, population density, and other facets of modern society. She explores how pornography, unhealthy diets, and even the quest for nuclear energy as opposed to wind or solar energy can be explained by supernormal stimuli. One reader said he liked the early chapters which are closer to standard evolutionary psychology better than the later more speculative ones. I disagree: I think the ideas in the later chapters are novel and exciting and offer ideas about how to deal with problems of our modern world that I haven't heard anywhere else. Excellent book; I recommend it highly!
Entertaining and Thought-Provoking May 12, 2010
M. W. Moffett (New York, NY, USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Is an out-of-control infatuation with large breasts and small waists -- made possible by Photoshop rather than reality -- healthy for us as individuals and as a society? How often are we hurt by modern products offering amped-up versions of what we desire: unhealthy but super-rich foods, television programs offering fake friends and adventures; watching sports from the sidelines rather than expending health-inducing calories to participate; the loss of face-to-face interactions with others in favor of facile opportunities of connecting on the internet. Barrett goes into everything from the nature of human aggression to the meaning of small testicles of human males. Excellent -- Buy it, read it, recommend it!
Insightful and entertaining May 16, 2010
Morton Schatzman (London)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
That the world we humans live in is radically different from the world our instincts evolved for is apparent to social scientists, evolutionary psychologists, and biologists. This fascinating book adds a new perspective. It argues that "supernormal stimuli" are leading us astray in many arenas: eating, sex and war, among others. Barrett borrows the title term from ethology, where it refers to stimuli with exaggerated colourings or markings or shapes that lure animals to, for instance, sit on fake eggs or mate with cardboard insects. Barrett suggests that the increasing tendency of modern society to create supernormal stimuli for ourselves exacerbates many human problems.
It's an important insight that affords an "aha" experience. It explains much self-defeating, self-destructive human behavior.
The book is both scholarly and entertaining, and here Barrett joins the top tier of outstanding scientific writers for a wide audience. She has a flair for witty analogies between animal follies and their human counterparts. The New Yorker cartoons and photos of animals and people caught in goofy acts complement the text.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to think scientifically about human behavior.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
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