A pop psychology book! I read a ton of these ten or fifteen years ago and then, much like memoirs, that genre began to feel a bit played out for me. This was a book I had read the first fifty or so pages of at some point and then never finished. And now I have! It was both very interesting, and slightly discouraging. The basic gist of it is that the things we tend to think should motivate people--direct monetary rewards and fear of punishment, primarily--are actually extremely unsuccessful except under very specific situations, and this applies basically equally to tasks we can take some intrinsic pleasure or satisfaction from, and ones that are mindless drudgery. We crave the innate reward of learning something or otherwise creating from the former kind of work, and value autonomy and control, rather than threat of punishment or a reward incentive, from the latter. Paying a kid to read more rarely works, but allowing a kid to select the kinds of books they want to read quite possibly will.
The reason I found this book discouraging is because so little of our society is set up with any of these concepts in mind. Our entire economy is one big punishment/reward system, even the 'good' jobs that allow either for expression or autonomy. This fall has felt like one big flashlight on problems we seem able to recognize and yet not solve, and this book just made that feel even more obvious. It was hard to know how to apply much if any of what the book was suggesting, even if it did give me a greater appreciation for why I love doing puzzles for no 'reason' or write for free. A good book, if not one with a clearly identifiable next step.
Grade: A
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