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Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose
How our once-helpful instincts got hijacked by our garish modern world.
Have you ever wondered why some men choose pornography over actual women? Why so many people watch Friends instead of going out with their own buddies? Why a person would “feed” a plastic Pocket Pet while shirking real duties? Why both sides of every war see the other as the aggressor against whom their “Department of Defense” must respond?
Harvard evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett explains how human instincts—for food, sex, or territorial protection—developed for life on the savannah ten thousand years ago, not for today’s world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. Evolution, quite simply, has been unable to keep pace with the rapid changes of modern life. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects—from candy to pornography to atomic bombs—that gratify outmoded but persistent drives with dangerous results.
In the 1930s Dutch Nobel laureate Niko Tinbergen found that birds that lay small, pale-blue eggs speckled with gray preferred to sit on giant, bright-blue, plaster dummies with black polka dots. He coined the term “supernormal stimuli” to describe these imitations that appeal to primitive instincts and, oddly, exert a stronger attraction than real things. Obviously these hard-wired preferences pose a danger to a species’ survival. Barrett’s singular insight is to apply this phenomenon for the first time to the alarming disconnect between human instinct and our created environment. Her book adroitly demonstrates how supernormal stimuli are a driving force in many of today’s most pressing problems, including obesity, our addiction to television and video games, and the past century’s extraordinarily violent wars. Man-made imitations, it turns out, have wreaked havoc on how we nurture our children, what food we put into our bodies, how we make love and war, and even how we understand ourselves.
Barrett does more than pull the fire alarm to show how these unfettered instincts fuel dangerous excesses. There is a hopeful message here as well. Once we recognize how supernormal stimuli operate, we can craft new approaches to modern predicaments. Humans have one stupendous advantage over Tinbergen’s a giant brain. The message of this book is that this gives us the unique ability to exercise self-control, override instincts that lead us astray, and save ourselves from civilization’s gaudy traps.
Have you ever wondered why some men choose pornography over actual women? Why so many people watch Friends instead of going out with their own buddies? Why a person would “feed” a plastic Pocket Pet while shirking real duties? Why both sides of every war see the other as the aggressor against whom their “Department of Defense” must respond?
Harvard evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett explains how human instincts—for food, sex, or territorial protection—developed for life on the savannah ten thousand years ago, not for today’s world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. Evolution, quite simply, has been unable to keep pace with the rapid changes of modern life. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects—from candy to pornography to atomic bombs—that gratify outmoded but persistent drives with dangerous results.
In the 1930s Dutch Nobel laureate Niko Tinbergen found that birds that lay small, pale-blue eggs speckled with gray preferred to sit on giant, bright-blue, plaster dummies with black polka dots. He coined the term “supernormal stimuli” to describe these imitations that appeal to primitive instincts and, oddly, exert a stronger attraction than real things. Obviously these hard-wired preferences pose a danger to a species’ survival. Barrett’s singular insight is to apply this phenomenon for the first time to the alarming disconnect between human instinct and our created environment. Her book adroitly demonstrates how supernormal stimuli are a driving force in many of today’s most pressing problems, including obesity, our addiction to television and video games, and the past century’s extraordinarily violent wars. Man-made imitations, it turns out, have wreaked havoc on how we nurture our children, what food we put into our bodies, how we make love and war, and even how we understand ourselves.
Barrett does more than pull the fire alarm to show how these unfettered instincts fuel dangerous excesses. There is a hopeful message here as well. Once we recognize how supernormal stimuli operate, we can craft new approaches to modern predicaments. Humans have one stupendous advantage over Tinbergen’s a giant brain. The message of this book is that this gives us the unique ability to exercise self-control, override instincts that lead us astray, and save ourselves from civilization’s gaudy traps.
225 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
53 people are currently reading
902 people want to read
About the author
Deirdre Barrett
18 books28 followersDeirdre Barrett is an author and psychologist who teaches at Harvard Medical School. She is known for her research on dreams, hypnosis and imagery and has written on evolutionary psychology. Barrett is a Past President of The International Association for the Study of Dreams and of the American Psychological Association’s Div. 30, The Society for Psychological Hypnosis.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
August 29, 2017
The only reason this book got any stars from me is because the subject of supernormal stimuli was actually interesting. Except Barrett didn't even talk about supernormal stimuli for 80% of the book.
This book suffers from what I call the Mindset effect - that is, the first couple of chapters are interesting and informative and the rest of the book is utter garbage. Barrett presents an extremely one-sided interpretation of the role of supernormal stimuli in today's society in which she talks about how everything is bad and we should all become paleo and cure the mentally ill through pure exercise and never entertain ourselves with anything invented after the 1000's BC and resist all cute things. She never even considers the positive impacts of supernormal stimuli - thus, it is clear that the book is really meant to broadcast her own opinions while fishing for readers under the guise of being informational. ("look at the next big-eyed thing... more warily" - really? Depressed people, say goodbye to your therapy dogs because they're bad for being unnaturally cute??)
As further evidence of her motives, hardly any of the facts-packed passages are cited (e.g. page 78 presents an entire paragraph about the harmfulness of concentrated foods without a single superscripted reference number in sight). Furthermore, when Barrett finally remembers to cite her evidence, the sources are often other opinion pieces rather than actual scientific articles (e.g. her argument about how people feel worse after watching TV references "Television Addiction," a pamphlet about how TV "lures" people in to being "harmed by their desires"). I really cannot grant her any credibility if she cites facts with biased sources written with an agenda.
In addition, many of Barrett's passages are written with a similar structure: she presents her opinions about how things these days are bad for 99% of the passage, then tacks on a sentence at the end that weakly links supernormal stimuli to the general topic. This is evident in the food chapter, in which she laments the fatness of Americans before concluding with "the fast food industry has perfected the supernormal stimulus" without even an explanation. dude I can see what you're doing. I used to write some of my essays like that.
Finally, because the entire book was really a judgmental trumpeting of Barrett's opinions that never deeply explored supernormal stimuli, the conclusion is quite incoherent. Even though she actually doesn't have one, she tries to summarize her central argument by telling the reader how to live their life from now on.
I could go on and on about the issues in this book but I don't want to waste more time than I already have by reading it.
This book suffers from what I call the Mindset effect - that is, the first couple of chapters are interesting and informative and the rest of the book is utter garbage. Barrett presents an extremely one-sided interpretation of the role of supernormal stimuli in today's society in which she talks about how everything is bad and we should all become paleo and cure the mentally ill through pure exercise and never entertain ourselves with anything invented after the 1000's BC and resist all cute things. She never even considers the positive impacts of supernormal stimuli - thus, it is clear that the book is really meant to broadcast her own opinions while fishing for readers under the guise of being informational. ("look at the next big-eyed thing... more warily" - really? Depressed people, say goodbye to your therapy dogs because they're bad for being unnaturally cute??)
As further evidence of her motives, hardly any of the facts-packed passages are cited (e.g. page 78 presents an entire paragraph about the harmfulness of concentrated foods without a single superscripted reference number in sight). Furthermore, when Barrett finally remembers to cite her evidence, the sources are often other opinion pieces rather than actual scientific articles (e.g. her argument about how people feel worse after watching TV references "Television Addiction," a pamphlet about how TV "lures" people in to being "harmed by their desires"). I really cannot grant her any credibility if she cites facts with biased sources written with an agenda.
In addition, many of Barrett's passages are written with a similar structure: she presents her opinions about how things these days are bad for 99% of the passage, then tacks on a sentence at the end that weakly links supernormal stimuli to the general topic. This is evident in the food chapter, in which she laments the fatness of Americans before concluding with "the fast food industry has perfected the supernormal stimulus" without even an explanation. dude I can see what you're doing. I used to write some of my essays like that.
Finally, because the entire book was really a judgmental trumpeting of Barrett's opinions that never deeply explored supernormal stimuli, the conclusion is quite incoherent. Even though she actually doesn't have one, she tries to summarize her central argument by telling the reader how to live their life from now on.
I could go on and on about the issues in this book but I don't want to waste more time than I already have by reading it.
September 26, 2020
There’s little new here for anyone familiar with the writings of Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins and Michael Pollan. In short, we are easy marks, ones the political and capitalist classes have now learned how to manage adeptly, sadly.
This work itself falls victim to the very supernormal stimuli Ms. Barrett describes, it being short and easily digested, perhaps with a high school student in mind, which explains the copious penciled underlinings and flowery marginal notes left in my library copy. I felt Ms. Barrett played loose with her assertions throughout, lest she lose our attention. One example:
A decade ago, a thought went through my mind: If we’re powerless to change the forces taking advantage of our supernormal stimuli, maybe it’s possible to profit from these phenomena—the don’t get mad, get even strategy. I designed an investment portfolio attempting to do just that. The results? My experiment led to average returns, no better nor no worse than the broad index. There was one notable anomaly, that being the three defense stocks I purchased, the only sector that outperformed. If we can’t change policy and we can’t profit from these behaviors, then what?
This work itself falls victim to the very supernormal stimuli Ms. Barrett describes, it being short and easily digested, perhaps with a high school student in mind, which explains the copious penciled underlinings and flowery marginal notes left in my library copy. I felt Ms. Barrett played loose with her assertions throughout, lest she lose our attention. One example:
But the biggest problem with most sports is that, as population densities grew, they quickly became spectator events—the impetus was channeled into vicarious experiences for the spectators. Until recently, many games had between 1:1 and 1:3 ratio of players to spectators.Really? Says who? There’s no explanatory note, no citation.
A decade ago, a thought went through my mind: If we’re powerless to change the forces taking advantage of our supernormal stimuli, maybe it’s possible to profit from these phenomena—the don’t get mad, get even strategy. I designed an investment portfolio attempting to do just that. The results? My experiment led to average returns, no better nor no worse than the broad index. There was one notable anomaly, that being the three defense stocks I purchased, the only sector that outperformed. If we can’t change policy and we can’t profit from these behaviors, then what?
May 18, 2014
Review supernormal stimuli - Deirdre Barrett
This book has positive and negative sides, hence the three stars.
Why I liked it: The content is original and was to a certain extent new to me. The book describes how exaggerated imitation can exert a stronger pull than the real thing. This holds for humans as well as animals. A bird would prefer to hatch out a volleyball instead of its own eggs, simply because the ball is bigger, or whiter or has another exaggerated but preferred characteristic. Note that at the moment I am reading "you are not so smart", which also has a chapter on supernormal stimuli.
I did not like the tone of the book. The writer sounds condescending and judgmental. It is a manifest we read. In the view of the author living unhealthy, watching tv, gathering wealth are all treats that are to be condemned. People should realize that these treats stem from supernormal stimuli, and people should therefore make different choices. The message is good, the tone of voice not, in my opinion.
For a more extensive review that adopts a similar reasoning, see WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001...
18 May 2014: I came across a lecture of the author: http://youtu.be/Y3ObUIf9pcs
This book has positive and negative sides, hence the three stars.
Why I liked it: The content is original and was to a certain extent new to me. The book describes how exaggerated imitation can exert a stronger pull than the real thing. This holds for humans as well as animals. A bird would prefer to hatch out a volleyball instead of its own eggs, simply because the ball is bigger, or whiter or has another exaggerated but preferred characteristic. Note that at the moment I am reading "you are not so smart", which also has a chapter on supernormal stimuli.
I did not like the tone of the book. The writer sounds condescending and judgmental. It is a manifest we read. In the view of the author living unhealthy, watching tv, gathering wealth are all treats that are to be condemned. People should realize that these treats stem from supernormal stimuli, and people should therefore make different choices. The message is good, the tone of voice not, in my opinion.
For a more extensive review that adopts a similar reasoning, see WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001...
18 May 2014: I came across a lecture of the author: http://youtu.be/Y3ObUIf9pcs
Read
December 26, 2011Starts with observations of early twentieth-century Dutch biologist Niko Tinbergen who found simple ways to investigate how animals perceive their world. Birds will sit on anything that looks like their species' eggs, and if the characteristics (such as polka-dots) are exaggerated, they will sit on fake eggs preferentially over real eggs. They will feed anything that looks like a baby bird if the relevant characteristic (such as an open beak) is faked with exaggeration. Goslings imprint on whatever creature they see within a few hours of hatching and will follow it around as if it were their parent. Male butterflies are attracted to vibrating cardboard tubing that looks like female butterfly torsos. Wasps locate their nests, not by color or scent, but by three-dimensional landmarks and will be fooled if the landmarks are moved. Male stickleback fish attack other males because of their red bellies, such that "males in aquariums by the window went into attack mode when a red postal van drove by." (p. 12)
Barrett uses these examples from the animal world to illustrate her claim that humans, too, have some instinctual behaviors that can backfire in the wrong context, leading us to prefer fake or unhealthy things. There are chapters on cuteness and domesticity, physical attractiveness and pornography, although these seem to lie outside her main message. Primarily her interest is in convincing people to avoid fast food and sugar and eat healthy diets. (According to the book jacket, she is an evolutionary psychologist at Harvard Medical School's Behavioral Medicine Program who has published other books for a popular audience about obesity.) The idea is that, once we understand our instincts and the habits that drive our appetites, we can choose to control our environments so we are not led astray. "We are the one animal that can notice, 'Hey, I'm sitting on a polka-dotted plaster egg' and climb off," she writes (p. 177).
Interesting in conjunction with Mistakes Were Made but not by me which is a more purely psychological approach focusing on the urge to rationalize one's own behavior and continue on doomed paths. Supernormal Stimuli brings evolutionary biology to inform the discussion.
Barrett uses these examples from the animal world to illustrate her claim that humans, too, have some instinctual behaviors that can backfire in the wrong context, leading us to prefer fake or unhealthy things. There are chapters on cuteness and domesticity, physical attractiveness and pornography, although these seem to lie outside her main message. Primarily her interest is in convincing people to avoid fast food and sugar and eat healthy diets. (According to the book jacket, she is an evolutionary psychologist at Harvard Medical School's Behavioral Medicine Program who has published other books for a popular audience about obesity.) The idea is that, once we understand our instincts and the habits that drive our appetites, we can choose to control our environments so we are not led astray. "We are the one animal that can notice, 'Hey, I'm sitting on a polka-dotted plaster egg' and climb off," she writes (p. 177).
Interesting in conjunction with Mistakes Were Made but not by me which is a more purely psychological approach focusing on the urge to rationalize one's own behavior and continue on doomed paths. Supernormal Stimuli brings evolutionary biology to inform the discussion.
September 26, 2015
What fast food, war, pornography, TV, and teddy bears all have in common.
The basic question which this book seeks to address is perhaps best summarized with the example of pornography: from the perspective of a biologist, what on earth could be going on in the brain of a human who chooses to use a two-dimensional image of a female for sexual stimulation instead of going out to find a real one? How could our genes have predisposed us for an activity so obviously counterproductive to passing on your genes to the next generation?
The author is an Evolutionary Psychologist at Harvard Medical School, and she's here to tell us about how instincts which once (when we were all hunter-gatherers on the African savannah) helped us to concentrate on what matters, now are as often a distraction, and lead us astray. She demonstrates the power of such instincts by slipping into a sort of preachy argumentativeness instead of just presenting the facts. We all have an instinct that says that shouting louder will help us to make our point more forcefully, even though (in books especially) it rarely does. But, she also does present the facts, so it's a good book if you can just skip over the preachy parts.
There are some intriguing examples of animal behavior at the beginning to give us the idea of what “supernormal stimuli” are. One of my favorite examples is from scientists who observed barn swallows, where the coloring of the male chest feathers is a primary determinant of how much the females are attracted to them. Using a felt tip marker, they were able to alter the coloring of a previously luckless male, and his fortunes at mating suddenly improved. Cuckoo bird eggs, and cuckoo chicks, are slightly larger and more colorful than the eggs they are surreptitiously placed with by their mother, and the hapless parents will give the egg and later chick more attention than they give their own young.
All of these are examples of a stimulus that has grown beyond the normal range, hence the name “supernormal stimuli”. Barrett has taken a look at this animal behavior and found a model to explain much that is wrong with the modern world:
- food that is sweeter and saltier than anything our ancestors ever came across in a lifetime of hunting, foraging, or farming, in quantities as great as they can stomach day after day
- animated characters so big-eyed and small-chinned they get scary levels of attention from grown adults as well as children (Barrett tracks the evolution of teddy bears and Mickey Mouse, as their respective producers discover that big heads and small bodies sell)
- pictures and video of women more eager for sex, all the time and anytime, than nearly any real woman, and certainly less likely to be judgmental
- television screens with constant movement and noise, both reliable indicators of something you should pay attention to
In each chapter, Barrett does a decent job of showing us the research that backs up her assertions but, if there is something I found disappointing in Barrett's book, it is that she too obviously cares about her topic. The early chapters focused more on the researchers who documented how supernormal stimuli worked, with occasional comments about its relevance to our lives today. As the book goes on, the situation switches, and she gives a brief mention of, say, the fact that couples with a TV in their bedroom report greatly reduced frequency of sex, before launching into a bit of a rant about how watching a box of circuitry showing a 2D simulation of friendship between people who don't exist, is no substitute for actually talking to real friends who actually exist (even though it can feel like it). I agree with her, and yet I found her zeal a bit off-putting. I don't wish to defend fast food, warmongering newsmedia, or the like, but reading a rant about them doesn't make me better informed.
Barrett's basic thesis, however, that there is a common pattern to many of the failings of modern human societies, is sound, and although much of it has been pointed out before she does a more comprehensive job of covering all of these supernormal stimuli. Each of the chapters in her book could be a book in itself, but we gain something from seeing the same failure mode in many different contexts. The fact that it is not quite a great book should not keep us from recognizing it as being very good.
Now, if she can just write a book explaining how to deal successfully with supernormal stimuli, she'll move up several notches in the intellectual hierarchy in my mind. Willpower alone, I fear, will not do.
The basic question which this book seeks to address is perhaps best summarized with the example of pornography: from the perspective of a biologist, what on earth could be going on in the brain of a human who chooses to use a two-dimensional image of a female for sexual stimulation instead of going out to find a real one? How could our genes have predisposed us for an activity so obviously counterproductive to passing on your genes to the next generation?
The author is an Evolutionary Psychologist at Harvard Medical School, and she's here to tell us about how instincts which once (when we were all hunter-gatherers on the African savannah) helped us to concentrate on what matters, now are as often a distraction, and lead us astray. She demonstrates the power of such instincts by slipping into a sort of preachy argumentativeness instead of just presenting the facts. We all have an instinct that says that shouting louder will help us to make our point more forcefully, even though (in books especially) it rarely does. But, she also does present the facts, so it's a good book if you can just skip over the preachy parts.
There are some intriguing examples of animal behavior at the beginning to give us the idea of what “supernormal stimuli” are. One of my favorite examples is from scientists who observed barn swallows, where the coloring of the male chest feathers is a primary determinant of how much the females are attracted to them. Using a felt tip marker, they were able to alter the coloring of a previously luckless male, and his fortunes at mating suddenly improved. Cuckoo bird eggs, and cuckoo chicks, are slightly larger and more colorful than the eggs they are surreptitiously placed with by their mother, and the hapless parents will give the egg and later chick more attention than they give their own young.
All of these are examples of a stimulus that has grown beyond the normal range, hence the name “supernormal stimuli”. Barrett has taken a look at this animal behavior and found a model to explain much that is wrong with the modern world:
- food that is sweeter and saltier than anything our ancestors ever came across in a lifetime of hunting, foraging, or farming, in quantities as great as they can stomach day after day
- animated characters so big-eyed and small-chinned they get scary levels of attention from grown adults as well as children (Barrett tracks the evolution of teddy bears and Mickey Mouse, as their respective producers discover that big heads and small bodies sell)
- pictures and video of women more eager for sex, all the time and anytime, than nearly any real woman, and certainly less likely to be judgmental
- television screens with constant movement and noise, both reliable indicators of something you should pay attention to
In each chapter, Barrett does a decent job of showing us the research that backs up her assertions but, if there is something I found disappointing in Barrett's book, it is that she too obviously cares about her topic. The early chapters focused more on the researchers who documented how supernormal stimuli worked, with occasional comments about its relevance to our lives today. As the book goes on, the situation switches, and she gives a brief mention of, say, the fact that couples with a TV in their bedroom report greatly reduced frequency of sex, before launching into a bit of a rant about how watching a box of circuitry showing a 2D simulation of friendship between people who don't exist, is no substitute for actually talking to real friends who actually exist (even though it can feel like it). I agree with her, and yet I found her zeal a bit off-putting. I don't wish to defend fast food, warmongering newsmedia, or the like, but reading a rant about them doesn't make me better informed.
Barrett's basic thesis, however, that there is a common pattern to many of the failings of modern human societies, is sound, and although much of it has been pointed out before she does a more comprehensive job of covering all of these supernormal stimuli. Each of the chapters in her book could be a book in itself, but we gain something from seeing the same failure mode in many different contexts. The fact that it is not quite a great book should not keep us from recognizing it as being very good.
Now, if she can just write a book explaining how to deal successfully with supernormal stimuli, she'll move up several notches in the intellectual hierarchy in my mind. Willpower alone, I fear, will not do.
May 3, 2018
This was a weak book on what I think is a very interesting topic. I hope I'll be able to find a better treatment somewhere.
OK, so to start, Barrett defines supernormal stimuli as being cases where an exaggerated facsimile can exert a stronger pull than the real thing. She treats a super broad array of topics, and for some of them, the link to supernormal stimuli seems pretty tenuous. There are some cases, like pornography and fast food, where the connection is pretty clear to me. But the discussions of, for example, war and organized sports just didn't connect very well.
For a book on a nominally scientific subject, the treatment is almost comically superficial. Not only does Barrett try to cover about six different topics, she does it in 180 (small and relatively widely spaced) pages, including a completely unnecessary chapter on the biography of Niko Tinbergen. The references are pretty sparse at times, especially given the broad claims Barrett makes, and many of them are to popular media. As an obvious example, I didn't ever observe her to cite Kahneman's work on System 1 and System 2 mental processes, which would seem to be extremely relevant. Also, I think Barrett often over-naturalizes the "African savannah" on which our brains evolved, focusing on how we can get our brains back into a context more like the one we evolved in rather than thinking more creatively about how we can intelligently shape our context in a forward-looking way.
I think Barrett fails to address a real elephant in the room, which is capitalism. As the cuckoo egg example shows, there are uses for supernormal stimuli outside of a capitalist context. But I think that capitalism is what has really led to an explosion and flourishing of supernormal stimuli, and awareness of this has to be a key element in arming ourselves against them, both individually and collectively. In part, I do think this book suffered from being published in 2010, before the real power of A/B tested and machine-learning-driven invasive stimuli was demonstrated by Buzzfeed et al, and most recently by the use of Facebook by the Trump campaign and Russia. (Microtargeting is a powerful handmaiden for supernormal stimulus.)
If you think this is an interesting topic, I would highly recommend instead reading the short story "Liking What You See: A Documentary", by Ted Chiang (see my GR review of the collection _Stories of Your Life and Others_). Although it is fiction, I think it is an extremely thoughtful and nuanced treatment of the relationship between evolved stimulus-response and morality.
OK, so to start, Barrett defines supernormal stimuli as being cases where an exaggerated facsimile can exert a stronger pull than the real thing. She treats a super broad array of topics, and for some of them, the link to supernormal stimuli seems pretty tenuous. There are some cases, like pornography and fast food, where the connection is pretty clear to me. But the discussions of, for example, war and organized sports just didn't connect very well.
For a book on a nominally scientific subject, the treatment is almost comically superficial. Not only does Barrett try to cover about six different topics, she does it in 180 (small and relatively widely spaced) pages, including a completely unnecessary chapter on the biography of Niko Tinbergen. The references are pretty sparse at times, especially given the broad claims Barrett makes, and many of them are to popular media. As an obvious example, I didn't ever observe her to cite Kahneman's work on System 1 and System 2 mental processes, which would seem to be extremely relevant. Also, I think Barrett often over-naturalizes the "African savannah" on which our brains evolved, focusing on how we can get our brains back into a context more like the one we evolved in rather than thinking more creatively about how we can intelligently shape our context in a forward-looking way.
I think Barrett fails to address a real elephant in the room, which is capitalism. As the cuckoo egg example shows, there are uses for supernormal stimuli outside of a capitalist context. But I think that capitalism is what has really led to an explosion and flourishing of supernormal stimuli, and awareness of this has to be a key element in arming ourselves against them, both individually and collectively. In part, I do think this book suffered from being published in 2010, before the real power of A/B tested and machine-learning-driven invasive stimuli was demonstrated by Buzzfeed et al, and most recently by the use of Facebook by the Trump campaign and Russia. (Microtargeting is a powerful handmaiden for supernormal stimulus.)
If you think this is an interesting topic, I would highly recommend instead reading the short story "Liking What You See: A Documentary", by Ted Chiang (see my GR review of the collection _Stories of Your Life and Others_). Although it is fiction, I think it is an extremely thoughtful and nuanced treatment of the relationship between evolved stimulus-response and morality.
September 13, 2023
you're better off reading this http://readthis.wtf/writing/hyperplas...
Deirdre is doing some Olympic level stretching with some of her citations the first bit of the book is good though
Deirdre is doing some Olympic level stretching with some of her citations the first bit of the book is good though
October 9, 2019
My second time through this very readable book about how our instincts have been played upon/led us astray. Seemed even truer, and I gleaned a bit more from it this time round. Recommended.
January 24, 2018
Picked this up as it had a review from Steven Pinker on the back and it was in the area of evolutionary psychology. Its interesting - some of the research about animals will often be more attracted to exaggerated versions of the things they are evolved to gravitate towards is timely - making us think about modern people's reactions to social media, pornography, junk food and so on.
It's not a long book, but written as it was in 2009, it does have some real-life dramatic irony in it: The author sees T.V. as the addictive drug of concern, and the internet as a potential liberation from its clutches. Had she known at the time what would begin to happen with the internet over the next few years, I think she'd have reversed that view.
Television (at least if used to watch good T.V.) seems positively wholesome compared to the rage fueled, rolling, scrolling, shit-fest that our modern Social Media world has become. That aside, its a nice rejoinder to the shallowness of most modern social constructionists.
It's not a long book, but written as it was in 2009, it does have some real-life dramatic irony in it: The author sees T.V. as the addictive drug of concern, and the internet as a potential liberation from its clutches. Had she known at the time what would begin to happen with the internet over the next few years, I think she'd have reversed that view.
Television (at least if used to watch good T.V.) seems positively wholesome compared to the rage fueled, rolling, scrolling, shit-fest that our modern Social Media world has become. That aside, its a nice rejoinder to the shallowness of most modern social constructionists.
July 7, 2013
A few thought-provoking ideas, undercut by the author's complete dismissal and trivialization of arts and music, areas far more complicated than the two or three pages she uses mostly to show her indifference of them.
It's clear what opinions, interests and fascinations comprise the author's point of view and what she considers useless, and the universal view the book is obviously trying to attain suffers as a result.
It's clear what opinions, interests and fascinations comprise the author's point of view and what she considers useless, and the universal view the book is obviously trying to attain suffers as a result.
June 30, 2011
This was a very interesting read. I would have preferred the book to talk more about the title subject but I felt that the author spent too much time discussing how the government should regulate or ban things. Regardless of how bad something is for us, the government shouldn't legislate personal choices. Otherwise, the book was informative.
June 8, 2011
Both Teddy and Santa got quite a bit cuter through the same period.
"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."
"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."
April 27, 2013
Great information but it gets heavy-handed on the obesity crisis agenda. I've thought some of this stuff before but it's good to have some of those thoughts validated.
May 28, 2024
The book is overall good and informative from the perspective of evolutionary biology. But I have to deduct a whole star for the grievous oversight of listing Star Wars as the primary example of the most popular film of all time that, according to the author, didn't leave audience happy to reflect on the significance of what they'd watch and instead essentially tricked them into craving a sequel. Firstly, this isn't even remotely true for A New Hope, the first Star Wars movie. It wasn't until Empire Strikes Back that we got a proper cliffhanger. Secondly, Star Wars has remained the most popular franchise in the world for fifty years precisely because of its deep mythological truths that warrant repeated viewing and reflection. This is possibly the worst example she could have chosen to make her point. It's as though she just read a plot summary or saw some Star Wars action figures and her mind filled in the rest. She follows it with some much more appropriate examples of shallow tv sitcoms. Lumping a great mythological piece of cinematic art in with these borders on blasphemous and makes me question the overall integrity of someone willing to confidently state something she knows so little about.
May 3, 2019
Interesting read. Barrett highlights the experiments of Niko Tinbergen on various animals, showing how there are hardwired circuits in many animals that can be triggered or exploited by certain stimuli. For example a male stickleback fish attacking anything with red color, based on nesting defense against males with red bellies. In the modern day, humans are bombarded with all sorts of stimuli, often in the form of technology/'smartphones'. These supernormal stimuli can capture our attention and leave us trapped in activities like Netflix binging, scrolling through social media posts, etc. Unlike other animals, though, we have the frontal lobes and other awareness to understand and potentially override these circuits. The underlying message Barrett gives is echoed by others - to cut down on over-stimulation that technology provides and focus on the real world! Again, I found this an enjoyable and short read on a relevant issue humanity faces today.
March 21, 2017
I want to like this book. I really do. Supernormal Stimuli argues that in the contemporary world, we create stimuli that evoke an increased response. For example, we make food with exactly the right ratio of fat to sugar, tickling the pleasure centres of our brain. The book discusses a great variety of supernormal stimuli, from Hello Kitty to crosswords, and while this broad scope is potentially interesting, I felt like it weakened the argument. In the end, it seemed that supernormal stimulus basically meant "something people like" - and do we really need a book to explain to us that solving a puzzle is gratifying?
In addition to this, I felt like the tone of the book was often patronizing, and occasionally downright condescending. Ms Barrett frequently interrupts her scientific explanations with personal opinions on how we should ban certain foods or prohibit children from watching TV. While there certainly is room for opinions on these subjects, I disliked how she left no room for argument, and presented her viewpoints as facts.
Finally, I find it hard to take anyone seriously who buys into the no-bread and "refined sugar" trend. There is no scientific evidence that bread is bad for you, and so-called refined sugar is digested exactly the same as non-refined sugars are. I strongly question your science, Ms Barrett.
In addition to this, I felt like the tone of the book was often patronizing, and occasionally downright condescending. Ms Barrett frequently interrupts her scientific explanations with personal opinions on how we should ban certain foods or prohibit children from watching TV. While there certainly is room for opinions on these subjects, I disliked how she left no room for argument, and presented her viewpoints as facts.
Finally, I find it hard to take anyone seriously who buys into the no-bread and "refined sugar" trend. There is no scientific evidence that bread is bad for you, and so-called refined sugar is digested exactly the same as non-refined sugars are. I strongly question your science, Ms Barrett.
March 30, 2020
Barrett is undoubtedly qualified to write the book on this topic. But unless you’re really interested in the science, I don’t think you need her to tell you what you have probably intuited: that many aspects of our world have been specifically designed or chosen to hijack our reward circuitry and establish patterns of addictive behaviour. If you want a more practical guide to act upon this realization, go read Digital Minimalism by the renowned Georgetown computer science professor Cal Newport instead.
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October 15, 2023This book is examining what I think may be one of the most important issues of our time - the fact that our modern environment is saturated with stimuli that hijack our natural impulses and turn us into addicts at all times. What makes this even more pernicious is that our culture repeatedly tells us that with our unprecedented access to information, and therefore knowledge, we have more control to rationally make decisions than we ever had in the past.
August 17, 2017
This book is excellent with the broad strokes and helping us understand what supernormal stimuli is and why it exists. I think what more I was looking for was a more granular look about how it manifests in everyday life and actionable steps to either combat it, or, through some sort of mental jui jitsu, harness it to work in our favor. Still a solid introduction to the concept.
August 25, 2023
2.5 stars. Some interesting ideas and probably useful to some extent, but I think the author extrapolates a bit too much, and I've always been skeptical of evolutionary psychology. Also, even the most qualified and watered-down endorsement of the ideas in The Bell Curve is automatic grounds to round down, IMO.
November 13, 2023
As many other reviewers have noted, this 177 page book would have made an excellent 4 page article. The core and eponymous insight is important, especially when applied to our eating and exercise habits. But the author's moralising and sniping grow tiresome and the final 50-odd pages are really nothing much more than an extended gripe against the sheeple.
January 2, 2020
Lucid and entertaining. Lots of interesting scientific facts about human nature to help one navigate through a confusing and hyperstimulated modern world. I read it in a couple of nights and recommend.
August 26, 2020
This book was recommended to me by a professor of psychology who has inspired me the most until this day. It changed how I see the choices we make and how we go through life. It's such an eye-opening book. I don't want to go into detail just to refrain from spoiling it. Enjoy!
May 5, 2024
It was alright, though it suffers from the issue that some non-fiction popular science books have where the author goes "Coincidentally, all the problems we suffer in the world are related to my area of research and the topic of this very book!"
July 3, 2018
A must read
November 4, 2018
Glad that I read it. Pretty light though...
December 3, 2018
A wonderful and engaging read on how too much of a good thing is really, really bad!
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November 22, 2022Basically I learned that parents love their babies only because they’re cute. So to all of you who weren’t adorable: you dodged a bullet.
June 12, 2023
loved
December 13, 2025
A great discussion of how we are the way we are
This book has is eye opening and very accurate. I will look for Waistland too. Can’t wait to read that book too.
This book has is eye opening and very accurate. I will look for Waistland too. Can’t wait to read that book too.
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