 | Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World By Sam Sommers
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Product Description
An "entertaining and engaging" exploration of the invisible forces influencing your life-and how understanding them can improve everything you do.
The world around you is pulling your strings, shaping your innermost instincts and your most private thoughts. And you don't even realize it.
Every day and in all walks of life, we overlook the enormous power of situations, of context in our lives. That's a mistake, says Sam Sommers in his provocative new book. Just as a museum visitor neglects to notice the frames around paintings, so do people miss the influence of ordinary situations on the way they think and act. But frames- situations- do matter. Your experience viewing the paintings wouldn't be the same without them. The same is true for human nature.
In Situations Matter, Sommers argues that by understanding the powerful influence that context has in our lives and using this knowledge to rethink how we see the world, we can be more effective at work, at home, and in daily interactions with others. He describes the pitfalls to avoid and offers insights into making better decisions and smarter observations about the world around us.
- Amazon Sales Rank: #6447 in Books
- Published on: 2011-12-29
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 304 pages
Review
Most helpful customer reviews
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Thoroughly engaging and interesting
By atmj
For a first time writer, of a psychology book no less, Sam Sommers has a great way of taking what could be a very dry subject and gave it life with his smart aleck style of writing. I know there a lot more books out there that I wish he wrote. Heck, I even enjoyed the Acknowledgments.
This is an interesting topic, one we can all understand, how the situation we are in often will influence our behavior. I'm sure if people were to consider many of these situations upfront they would deny that they could act this way, but the data does not lie.
The chapters are: Paraphrased by me.
Prologue
1. WYSIWYG: Talks about how when we see people in one situation, and assume it reflects their behavior in all situations.
2. Help Wanted: How we assume other people will address a situation observed in public, such as a call for help. Let someone else help. And more importantly, how to change this behavior.
3. Go with the Flow: The influence of crowds and authority figures on behavior.
4. You're not the person you thought you were; Everything is relative
5. Mars and Venus here on earth: Gender differences are more explained by socialization than biology.
6. Love: Who we love is more explained by geography, familiarity and state of mind than we realize.
7. Hate: Them versus Us, the bigots in us all.
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Having read many a dry but interesting psychology book, this author had a way to make the subject matter come alive. I can see where this would be required reading in many a (fortunate) psychology class, however better yet, this books calls for us to be better people.
* We need to realize people are not always what they seem in one situation.
* We need to realize that even in groups, we have the responsibility to help and not expect the crowd to do so.
* If something seems wrong to us, we should not let the crowd or the authority figures dictate our behavior.
* Women and Men are more similar than different and should not be so categorized, or limited in our expectations.
* Sometimes by acknowledging differences between groups, we find freedom to move on, or at least recognition of our own reactions
* Last but not least, observe and don't assume and in being more considerate, we can live together more harmoniously.
Not often you find so many gems in a psychology book...
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.A Must for Anyone Who Interacts with Others
By Jon Haverly
Situations Matter is a new book by Sam Sommers whose goal is to demonstrate how situations influence our thoughts and behaviors. The book more than accomplishes this goal by also providing techniques to interpret situations that are influencing behaviors and providing techniques to better respond to these situations.
The author starts by recounting an experience in which he and his wife missed a connecting flight and how he interpreted the situation to negotiate a hotel voucher from the airlines customer service agent. In this case the author explains how he considered the situation in which the agent was operating to successfully frame his request. The lesson is that the agent is not a heartless ogre who did not want to assist the stranded travelers but instead an amicable person who was put in a tough situation by the airline. This discussion is very well aligned with the powerful negotiation techniques presented by Stuart Diamond in Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World.
Sommers then discusses why, when presented with three game show hosts to tutor our child, we would immediately pick a certain one since he is viewed as more knowledgeable based on the game show that he hosts.
The remainder of the book covers several specific situational topics as I outline below.
WYSISYG - What you see is what you get. In this chapter, Sommers explains how we respond to what we see and discusses why we do not typically analyze and interpret the specific situation. In particular there is a discussion on how westerners will focus on a main object in a picture while those from eastern cultures look at the entire picture- frame and all! The most interesting analogy I found in this section was comparing the 2006 Olympics Opening Ceremony in Atlanta with the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony in China. As you may recall the 2008 games in China opened with 2008 people playing the drums while the 2006 games in Atlanta opened with a single performer - Celine Dion. Interesting insight indeed!
Help Wanted - In this chapter Sommers explores the perplexing reasons of why people in crowds will not assist those in need. Many real life examples along with results of studies (including the famous Good Samaritan study conducted at Princeton University) demonstrate that we will shirk responsibility when we are in the mix of a crowd as opposed to being alone.
Sommers also provides his insights onto the infamous lack of crowd response to the extended assault on Kitty Genovese in Queens during 1964. This is the classic case study of crowds which analyzed in many other books include Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Overall this chapter is an impressive synopsis as to why crowds affect our responses and behaviors.
Go with the Flow - This section introduces the Crows Whisperer aka `Super Fan'. This is the guy at sporting events who gets you to break out of the norms and scream passionately for your team. The most important take a ways from this chapter are techniques that can help you break yourself and others from the crowd affect that paralyze us during emergencies.
You are Not Who You Think You Are - In this section, Sommers presents evidence that we not only view others differently given the situation, but we also view ourselves differently. The results of several research experiments show that depending on our location and context we will identify ourselves differently. The author also gives great advice on how we should view ourselves as opposed to how many `self help' experts try to convince us to view ourselves. Overall this is a well written and very insightful chapter for understanding how we view ourselves.
Love and Hate - The final two chapter address how and when we love and hate are both influenced by situations. In the love section Sommers outlines the situational influences that affect who we end up choosing to date and marry as opposed to the traits we seek in a mate.
In my opinion, the chapter on Hate is the most important in the book. Finally, someone has addressed why we have a hard time initially distinguishing people within different ethnic backgrounds. This is a critical concept for anyone to understand when they interact and work with people who we do not classify within one of our `in groups'. This section also provides useful lessons for Project Managers who need to manage a team that consists of different groups, organizations or backgrounds.
My conclusion is this is a great book for helping to remind us that when viewing and judging the actions of others we need to consider their situation. It's main strength is that it also provides insights and strategies for dealing with the potential harm of crowd affects along with overcoming biases, both our own and others.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who interacts with other people. For further reading on these topics I also recommend reviewing the author's blog.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.This Book Can Help You Appreciate the Significance of Context in Your Life and Work
By James Strock
This is a delightful book. The author writes gracefully. He presents references and information that back his points, without being academic or abstruse.
His fundamental point: context influences our thought and decision-making processes to a much great extent than we tend to be aware. From choice of marriage partners to our reactions to advertising and other communications, context can be decisive.
This suggests that our listening and observation powers can be cultivated to our great benefit. It can also mean that simply tweaking one aspect of a situation can occasion a significant change in behavior and others' expectations. Sommers' example o the effects of having women--rather than men--circulate in speed dating is interesting and instructive.
In sum, 'Situations Matter' is an interesting read. Can be of real value in comprehending circumstances. Also useful in helping us understand the ways we frame situations that affect how others view us in work and life.
http://astore.amazon.com/amazon-book-books-20/detail/1594488185
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