Sobre Mudar de Vida

A incrível história da professora brasileira do MIT que largou tudo para dançar tango.

21/10/13, Gluck Project.

Trechos:

"Além de toda essa crise existencial que levou uns 6, 7 anos para eu superar, não podemos esquecer que meu doutorado foi em “tomada de decisões em regimes de incerteza”. Era muita ironia para mim que eu fosse considerada uma autoridade no assunto, quando na minha própria vida eu me sentia completamente despreparada para tomar decisões. Usando palavras de Ernesto Sabato (escritor e artista plástico argentino), sentia na pele que “a razão não serve para a existência”. E passava a encarar com muito ceticismo a vida científica e a questionar os sacrifícios da minha vida pessoal.

E como você largou tudo isso para se tornar dançarina de tango?

Nunca pensei em ser bailarina profissional, mas sempre amei a dança, já com 7, 8 anos ficava vendo Margot Fonteyn (bailarina inglesa) na televisão. Um ano antes de sair do Brasil tive contato com as danças de salão e comecei a dançar forró – primeiro uma noite por semana, e em pouco tempo, já eram cinco vezes por semana, uma obsessão! Na dança me sentia livre, completamente feliz e identificada, cheia de prazer. Sinto que viver, e especialmente ser consciente de nossa condição, é incrivelmente difícil, é a carga do ser humano: viver sabendo da arbitrariedade do sofrimento, de nossa impotência diante da tragédia, doença, de todos os males que afetam os seres que amamos, viver lembrando de nossa própria mortalidade. A religião de alguma forma tenta resolver isso, oferece uma teoria, mas na minha mente (que até hoje funciona mais pela lógica), eu consigo ao máximo ser agnóstica, admitindo que não posso saber se tudo tem um motivo ou é completamente aleatório. Não é uma posição muito confortante ou satisfatória. Como alternativa, alguns de nós buscamos aliviar ou resolver essas questões pela ciência, que também está limitada em suas respostas. E o tango, ao final, não pode me dar nenhuma resposta, mas me dá outra coisa: faz com que todas essas questões se tornem “irrelevantes”. O tango tem esse poder de me ancorar no presente, no prazer físico do movimento, no prazer emocional do encontro com a música e com outra pessoa. Minha crise existencial se dissolve diante disso.

Muitas pessoas dizem que querem mudar de vida, mas tem medo. O que você acha que leva as pessoas a ficarem tantos anos vivendo uma vida que não lhes traz felicidade?

A incerteza dá muito medo. Deixar de lado um caminho que não é muito feliz, mas não chega a ser terrível para apostar em algo sem garantia de resultado não é fácil. A mudança é incômoda. Recomeçar do zero é árduo e acho que se no momento da decisão eu tivesse uma família, não sei se teria bancado a incerteza econômica. Se bem que eu acho que mesmo com as responsabilidades, valeria a pena. (...)
Percebi que além do medo natural e as incertezas, há uma barreira muito importante para a mudança: as crenças que criamos sobre nossa identidade. Eu fui uma criança que ia muito bem na escola, que me destacava nas ciências exatas – que por algum motivo eram muito intuitivas para mim – e acreditava que aí estava meu valor. Foi só no momento em que meu amigo demonstrou sua preocupação comigo que comecei a ver que eu era muito mais que isso. Então, acredito que para a mudança, deve-se estar atento às “hipótese implícitas” que se formam sobre nossa identidade e valor. Até hoje sigo nesse labirinto de identidade já que ao romper essas crenças, passei por um período de desprezo pelo meu lado matemático. Ainda não entendo completamente minha dualidade e não sei como integrar os dois lados em um todo harmonioso, mas continuo tentando! (...)

Quando era criança, meu pai me contou de um fotógrafo cujo hobby era fotografia; ele o considerava realmente afortunado. Eu tive a imensa sorte de conseguir o mesmo: quando não estou trabalhando, quero dançar! Que mais poderia pedir da vida?"

What if Money Was No Object? - Alan Watts

Em Busca da Igualdade

Felicidade e Morte

Para ser feliz, pense na morte.

15/10/13 - Entrevista no Gluck Project

Trechos:

“Você conheceu alguém que chegou ao fim da vida sem arrependimentos?

Sim. São pessoas que fizeram o melhor que puderam. Me lembro de um paciente, um homem que era ateu. A gente teve essa conversa sobre arrependimentos durante um pôr-do-sol. Eu perguntei a ele: “Você se arrepende de alguma coisa? Você faria alguma coisa diferente?” E ele disse que não. Disse: “Se eu tivesse escolhido outros caminhos, teria encontrado outros abismos, outras curvas. As decisões que eu tomei foram as melhores que podia tomar naquele momento. Eu fiz o melhor que pude. Então eu estou em paz.” E ele nunca fez terapia! Ele já nasceu pronto! Ele era ateu, então sua dimensão espiritual era em relação com a natureza e o universo. A pessoa pode se relacionar consigo mesmo, com os próximos, com o universo ou com Deus. Cada um trabalha em uma dessas dimensões. Esse paciente se relacionava com o universo. Então ele falava para mim: “Ana Paula, olha o sol. O sol está morrendo. Por que eu tenho que viver para sempre, se tudo no universo nasce, tem seu desenvolvimento e morre?” E esse homem morreu no pôr-do-sol, exatamente.

Mas isso é a minoria dos casos… É mais raro, porque as pessoas na maior parte das vezes tomam decisões que não são baseadas no melhor para elas, mas no que os outros acham que é melhor. O grande dilema do ser humano é ser amado. E quando ele toma essas decisões, se baseia na possibilidade de receber mais amor. O que as pessoas não entendem é que não é um ato de egoísmo você pensar no que é melhor para você. Você escolher algo que vai te fazer mais feliz não é maldade – pelo contrário. Imediatamente você também vai deixar mais felizes as pessoas à sua volta. E você também vai ser amado.“

Por que você acha que tanta gente se arrepende de ter trabalhado tanto?

O trabalho tem a ver com o tempo dedicado. Se você pensar, (…) nove horas no trabalho, mais oito para dormir, sobram sete horas para viver. E nessas sete você também pensa no trabalho. No fim da vida, você olha para trás e vê tudo o que se dedicou ao trabalho – talvez você tenha sido demitida aos 40 anos, ou você não gostava da profissão, ou escolheu a carreira para agradar seu pai ou sua mãe, ou ficou trabalhando para juntar patrimônio para seus filhos. No fim, você não leva nada disso. Agora, se você faz um trabalho que realiza você, que a deixe satisfeita consigo mesmo, e que traz resultados bons pra sua vida pessoal, ninguém se arrepende. (…)

Para alguém que vê tão de perto o fim da vida, quais seriam suas dicas para viver bem? Seria não se preocupar?

Não tem essa de não se preocupar. Isso seria muito hedonista, né? “Ah, então vou levar a vida na flauta”, mas a vida não é uma flauta, ninguém veio a passeio. A dica não é levar nada a sério, é levar tudo a sério. Mas de maneira que, ao final, você possa dizer que fez escolhas conscientes. Não pode ficar se martirizando. Você faz uma escolha com trinta anos e aí aos cinquenta fica se lamentando: “Ai, como pude fazer aquilo”. Isso é roubar no jogo: você é uma criatura de cinquenta anos julgando uma de trinta, que não tinha noção do que podia acontecer. Isso é errado, não é honesto. Honesto é olhar para o momento em que você tomou aquela decisão e ver se você seguiu seu coração.

(…)

Sinto que as pessoas se perdem tentando seguir todas as regras que existem para viver mais e melhor… Você já fez a conta de quanto tempo se perderia se você mastigar 25 vezes, se você meditar uma hora, se você fizer atividade física? Cai na real. Que horas isso vai acontecer? Acho que a medicina é uma forma das pessoas se distraírem um pouco daquilo que realmente importa, que é viver. Mas a gente deveria usar a medicina como uma ferramenta para viver melhor. E isso não é uma receita de bolo, porque o meu “viver melhor” não é o seu. Não adianta seguir todos os conselhos. (…)

O que é importante para se despedir bem?

Eu acho que o que é mais difícil é ter pessoas ao teu lado que vão dar conta de cuidar de você nesse momento. Essa área que eu faço precisa de profissionais qualificados. Humanidade é um negócio que você desenvolve ao longo da vida. E para você estar do lado das pessoas que estão no fim da vida, você tem de ter formação e conhecimento. 

(...) O mais difícil é sempre para o paciente. Se meu pai morreu, ele se despediu da vida. Eu perdi meu pai, mas ele perdeu tudo. (...) Porque a tristeza existe, mas existe uma paz de que tudo foi feito.”

The Darwinian Life – a Summary

LIFE is about:

Survival    and    Reproduction 
Reproduction is more important than survival, therefore much of daily existence is about showing off in ways that attract members of the opposite sex and intimidate those of the same sex.

In modern society, status is mediated by money.

Status, though, is always relative: it is about outdoing the competition. This is the ultimate engine of economic growth. Since status is a moving target, there is no such thing as enough money.
BUT: Once economic growth has lifted a country out of penury, its inhabitants are likely to live longer, healthier lives if there are not huge differences between their incomes. This means that poorer countries with low income-variation can outscore richer ones with high variation. Those at the bottom of social hierarchies have worse health than those at the top.
The sense of justice, ideas of revenge and punishment are unique human concepts that have allowed us to become a successful, collaborative species. It has evolved as mechanisms for societies to function well internally.
Ex: No court sits in judgement over a drake who has raped a duck. A lioness may try to defend her cubs against infanticide, but if she fails she does not plan vengeance against the male who did it. Instead, she usually has sex with him. 
It is one of the marvels of civilisation that punishment and revenge have, for the most part, been institutionalised. But to be successful, the institutionalised punishment has to be seen as a proper outcome by the individuals who were harmed. Otherwise, they might mete out their own revenge.  

On Brainwashing

Do you believe in brainwashing?

On 16/02/13 by Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian.      

Extracts:

“The term "brainwashing" first became widespread in the 1950s, to explain why some US soldiers, taken prisoner in Korea defected to the enemy.
(…)
The concept was a handy way of avoiding darker questions about psychology. If brainwashing exists, the main thing is just to keep clear of brainwashers. But in fact the world's full of "hidden persuaders", large and small. There isn't a secret switch that lets villains control your thoughts; instead, there are TV ads and manipulative friends and guilt-inducing religions, and a million other ways in which we influence, and are influenced, all the time.
(…)
We crave the sense of having consistent personalities, and that means not abandoning a path you've been on for months or years already.
(…)
It's worthwhile, and a bit alarming, to ask how many other projects we fail to abandon – bad jobs, bad marriages, bad wars – because we think we've invested too much to turn back. Scientologists believe some ridiculous things (for example, that humans are possessed by the souls of extraterrestrials who were brought to earth 75m years ago, and killed using hydrogen bombs). The scarier truth is that the rest of us do, too.”

On Universal Beauty

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Is it just a cultural construct? 

Denis Dutton's provocative theory on beauty -- that art, music and other beautiful things are a core part of human nature with deep evolutionary origins.

On Being Wrong

Most of us will do anything to avoid being wrong. But what if we're wrong about that? "Wrongologist" Kathryn Schulz makes a compelling case for not just admitting but embracing our fallibility.

On the Purpose Instinct

Even Scientists Believe in Magic
On 19/03/2013 by Matthew Hutson in Psyched!

We're biased to see a purpose behind things.

Extracts:

“In a 2012 Gallup poll, only 15 percent of Americans said humans evolved without God’s guidance. (...) Why are those nonscientific beliefs so persistent? It could be human nature: New research suggests even top scientists are not immune to such magical intuitions.

Over the years, a number of psychologists have suggested that we are promiscuously teleological. Telos is Greek for end or purpose, and teleology is the belief that an object was created or an event occurred to fulfill some purpose. You believe there’s not just a how but a why to its origin, that there’s a mind with intentions behind it. (…)

The default nature of teleological reasoning was revealed in a 2009 paper. Deborah Kelemen and Evelyn Rosset asked Boston University students to judge whether certain inaccurate teleological sentences were true. For example, “Mosses form around rocks to stop soil erosion,” and, “The sun makes light so that plants can photosynthesize.” Subjects mistakenly said they were true in 52 percent of cases. And when given a time limit of 3.2 seconds per sentence, the error rate was even higher, at 61 percent, suggesting that when we don’t have time to correct ourselves, our natural reaction is to assume things were created for a particular function. (…)

So Kelemen tested professional physical scientists. In the first experiment, 80 scholars in chemistry, geoscience, and physics from universities including Harvard, Brown, and MIT were given a test similar to the one in the 2009 paper. They judged the accuracy of sentences such as “Trees produce oxygen so that animals can breathe,” with or without time pressure. Without the pressure they fell into the teleological trap in 15 percent of cases. When rushed, they erred 29 percent of the time. The scientists performed better than the 2009 subjects, but again, a bias was revealed. (…)

Our “tenacious teleological tendencies” influence more than our explanations of evolution and moss and photosynthesis. It guides how we find meaning in life (…). The sense that certain things were “meant to be” or even that “everything happens for a reason” is encouraged by the intuitive assumption that a mind is guiding all the events in our lives. (…) Even the most skeptical and well-educated of us can feel we were put here on Earth for a reason, or that stepping in dog poo on the way to an interview is just so typical—of course that had to happen to you." 

On the Human

Great book opening!

"Straw Dogs - Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals" 

by John Gray

On Loving What You Do

The author of the indelible "Fahrenheit 451" and his contagious love for books.
What an endearing man!

On Self-Deception

Living a Lie

On 02/02/2013 by Kat McGowan, on Psychology Today

Fooling yourself can have devastating consequences, especially in the domains of money, career, sexual identity and relationships.

Extracts:

“Yes, you are just a little bit smarter than most people. Funnier, too. And while we’re at it, more appealing. Your strengths are writ large, and your flaws are, well, minimal. Your successes are hard-earned. Failures? Most are the result of sheer bad luck.

Almost all of us engage in self-deception, little denials or rationalizations that remove unpleasant evidence of our warts. Episodes of self-enhancement are absolutely normal. In fact, slightly overrating ourselves seems to be psychologically healthy. Self-deception alleviates stress, benefits relationships, and makes us more resilient by sheltering the ego from the storms of reality. (…)

A little bit of self-deceit can be good for you. But when it comes to the core challenges of adult life—career, money, sexual identity and marriage—fooling yourself can have devastating consequences.

In each of these domains—think of them as the four horsemen of self-deception—we face situations that require us to make difficult decisions in the face of doubt and uncertainty. The result is anxiety and a strong temptation to hide from the truth. “People keep secrets from themselves because to acknowledge the information would be extremely anxiety-producing,” says New York City psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Gail Saltz. Self-deception and worry reinforce each other, making it harder and harder to face the facts.”

On Life-Choice Evangelists

This column will change your life: life-choice evangelists

On 09/03/2013, by Oliver Burkeman, the Guardian

'Their real motivation, you suspect, isn't their certainty that marriage, or parenthood, would be best for you. Rather, it's that they worry that it's not best for them'

Extracts:

“You almost certainly know at least one infuriating person who is what I'll call, for want of a better term, a life-choice evangelist. As the label suggests, LCEs are driven by the anxious insistence that whatever major decisions they've made – to get married, to have or not have kids, to sacrifice fulfilling work for a higher salary, or vice versa – are best for everyone. If he's married, an LCE will seem unable to comprehend why anyone wouldn't choose to be; if she's single and you're not, she'll drop hints that you should envy her freedom. Contradict an LCE, by suggesting an alternative life path, and you'll witness a face flicker of confusion, as if you might not be speaking English. (…)

The LCEs' real motivation, you suspect, isn't their certainty that marriage, or parenthood, or leaving the city for the country, would be best for you. Rather, it's that they worry, perhaps subconsciously, that it's not best for them: their efforts to persuade are an attempt to reassure themselves. A study soon to be published in Psychological Science strongly suggests that's so. The Stanford researcher Kristin Laurin and her colleagues found that people think more highly of those with the same relationship status as them – even when it shouldn't matter, as when hiring someone for a job, or deciding which politician to vote for. (…)

The truly telling detail, though, was that the effect was more marked the more permanent people believed their own status to be. It wasn't the most happily coupled-up people who thought coupledom was best; it was those who thought their position least likely to change who most strongly felt it was preferable for all. "Perceiving an unchangeable situation as undesirable can lead to feelings of being 'trapped'," the researchers write. One way to avoid that "is to represent one's current situation as an ideal – not just for oneself, but universally." If marriage is best for everyone, the logic goes, it must be best for me.”

On Social Constructs and Policy-Making

Why football is random but we think it isn't;
Why wine is rubbish yet we drink it;
Why native English speakers don't learn foreign languages
and other interesting heuristics.

The insightful Rory Sutherland:

On Inconsistency

Why people act out of line with their beliefs

On 12/03/2013, by Tom Stafford on BBC Future 

Ever been forced to defend a particular position and ended up believing it? You’ve succumbed to one of the most famous theories in social psychology.

Extracts:

“If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards. And if you find yourself acting out of line with your beliefs, change them. This sounds like motivational advice from one of the more cynical self-help books, or perhaps a Groucho Marx line (“Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others…”), but in fact it is a caricature of one of the most famous theories in social psychology.

Leon Festinger's Dissonance Theory is an account of how our beliefs rub up against each other, an attempt at a sort of ecology of mind. Dissonance Theory offers an explanation of topics as diverse as why oil company executives might not believe in climate change, why army units have brutal initiation ceremonies, and why famous books might actually be boring. (…)

Fans of cognitive dissonance will tell you that this is why people forced to defend a particular position – say because it is their job – are likely to end up believing it. It can also suggest a reason for why military services, high school sports teams and college societies have bizarre and punishing initiation rituals. If you've been through the ritual, dissonance theory predicts, you're much more likely to believe the group is a valuable one to be a part of (the initiation hurt, and you're not a fool, so it must have been worth it right?). (…)

Changing your beliefs to be in line with how you acted may not be the most principled approach. But it is certainly easier than changing how you acted.”

On Happiness

Happiness, Beyond the Data 

On 10/04/13, by Gary Gutting, the Opinionator

Extracts:

"Happiness studies are booming in the social sciences, and governments are moving toward quantitative measures of a nation’s overall happiness, meant to supplement traditional measures of wealth and productivity. (…)

Happiness involves four things, and the first one is mostly a matter of luck. You have be sufficiently free of suffering — physical and mental — for happiness to be even possible. Suffering can be noble and edifying, but it can also reduce us to a state where there’s nothing beyond our distress that can make it meaningful. (…)

The second requirement for happiness: fulfilling work. Since humans are distinct persons but with essential ties to a community, my work must be fulfilling both individually and socially: I must do something that satisfies me as an individual and that I regard as producing significant good for others. Of course, unless I have the luck of being born rich, my work must also generate enough income to provide me the minimal goods without which happiness is not even possible. The challenge is to find satisfying work with an adequate income. (…)

A third feature of happiness is what the ancient Greeks called the proper “use of pleasure.” Here I am using “pleasure” to refer not to just any feeling of satisfaction but to the immediate gratification of the senses: not only the five physical senses but also the aesthetic sensibilities directed to art and nature. (…) The danger — particularly for a society as rich as ours — is making pleasure the central focus in the pursuit of a happy life. (…) Pleasures themselves often induce a desire for their repetition and intensification, and without moderation from a reflective mind, they can marginalize the work that lies at the core of true happiness. (…)

Finally, and often most important, there is the happiness of human love, where my happiness arises from and contributes to the happiness of my spouse, my children, my friends — even perhaps of all humankind. Such love can take us beyond the domain of mere happiness, into the world of moral and religious values. It can even lead to sacrificing my happiness for another’s. Love is both the culmination of happiness and a reminder that there is more to life than happiness."

On Brain Tricks

10 Ways Your Brain Is Smacking You Around
Sometimes it seems like your brain just isn't on your side.    
11/12/12 by David DiSalvo in Psychology Today
 
Extract:    
 
“We'd be nowhere without the marvel of evolution in our skulls, but sometimes our brains act in ways not in our best interests, and that's when we have to remember that not every message coming from the control center is accurate or beneficial. Here are 10 examples:

1. Telling you that you have more impulse control than you really do.
2. Producing more automatic thoughts than you can possibly manage.
3. Pulling you into rumination about your worst fears.
4. Directing you toward distractions to take the pressure off.
5. Making you think you’re a mind-reader and a fortune-teller.
6. Sending mixed messages about which rewards to pursue.
7. Looking for patterns, here, there and everywhere.
8. Pushing you into extending trust whether or not it’s reciprocated.
9. Making things seem urgent that really aren’t.
10. Tripping your guilt wire every time something goes wrong.”


The 12 cognitive biases that prevent you from being rational  
By George Dvorsk, On iO9

Extract:                                               

“The human brain is capable of 1016 processes per second, which makes it far more powerful than any computer currently in existence. But that doesn't mean our brains don't have major limitations. The lowly calculator can do math thousands of times better than we can, and our memories are often less than useless — plus, we're subject to cognitive biases, those annoying glitches in our thinking that cause us to make questionable decisions and reach erroneous conclusions. Here are a dozen of the most common and pernicious cognitive biases that you need to know about.

1. Confirmation Bias
We love to agree with people who agree with us.

2. Ingroup Bias
It causes us to overestimate the abilities and value of our immediate group at the expense of people we don't really know.

3. Gambler's Fallacy
We tend to put a tremendous amount of weight on previous events, believing that they'll somehow influence future outcomes.

4. Post-Purchase Rationalization
Also known as Buyer's Stockholm Syndrome, it's a way of subconsciously justifying our purchases — especially expensive ones. Social psychologists say it stems from the principle of commitment, our psychological desire to stay consistent and avoid a state of cognitive dissonance.

5. Neglecting Probability
It’s our inability to grasp a proper sense of peril and risk — which often leads us to overstate the risks of relatively harmless activities, while forcing us to overrate more dangerous ones.

6. Observational Selection Bias
This is that effect of suddenly noticing things we didn't notice that much before — but we wrongly assume that the frequency has increased.

7. Status-Quo Bias
We humans tend to be apprehensive of change, which often leads us to make choices that guarantee that things remain the same, or change as little as possible.

8. Negativity Bias
People tend to pay more attention to bad news. (...) Evolutionarily, heeding bad news may be more adaptive than ignoring good news.

9. Bandwagon Effect
Though we're often unconscious of it, we love to go with the flow of the crowd.
Much of this bias has to do with our built-in desire to fit in and conform, as famously demonstrated by the Asch Conformity Experiments.

10. Projection Bias
We tend to believe that people not only think like us, but that they also agree with us. It's a bias where we overestimate how typical and normal we are, and assume that a consensus exists on matters when there may be none. 
 
11. The Current Moment Bias
We humans have a really hard time imagining ourselves in the future and altering our behaviors and expectations accordingly. Most of us would rather experience pleasure in the current moment, while leaving the pain for later.

12. Anchoring Effect
Also known as the relativity trap, this is the tendency we have to compare and contrast only a limited set of items. The classic example is an item at the store that's on sale; we tend to see (and value) the difference in price, but not the overall price itself."

On Optimism

The Science of Our Optimism Bias and the Life-Cycle of Happiness
Based on Tali Sharot’s book in "The Science of Optimism: Why We’re Hard-Wired for Hope", on Brain Pickings.

“To make progress, we need to be able to imagine alternative realities, and not just any old reality but a better one.”

Extracts:

“Sharot cites, this “optimism bias” might be better termed “narcissism bias” — a phenomenon known as the “superiority illusion”:

‘In a survey by two Ohio researchers, 25 percent of respondents said they were in the top 1 percent for getting along well with others. A separate study of college students found that 93 percent of respondents in the U.S. believed they were above average in driving ability. Most people would even be willing to bet money on it if you asked them to. This high level of car-handling expertise, however, is statistically impossible — we cannot all be better than everyone else.’

On pessimism:

‘The problem with pessimistic expectations, such as those of the clinically depressed, is that they have the power to alter the future; negative expectations shape outcomes in a negative way. Not everyone agrees with this assertion. Some people believe the secret to happiness is low expectations. If we don’t expect greatness or find love or maintain health or achieve success, we will never be disappointed. If we are never disappointed when things don’t work out and are pleasantly surprised when things go well, we will be happy. It’s a good theory — but it’s wrong. Research shows that whatever the outcome, whether we succeed or we fail, people with high expectations tend to feel better. At the end of the day, how we feel when we get dumped or win an award depends mostly on how we interpret the event.’"

On Context

Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World
07/01/13, by Sam McNerney, on Big Think.

Extract:

“McNerney: Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World” (a book by Sam Sommers) is a reaction to the idea that personalities are immutable, that the individual changes the situation but not the other way around. We’re more influenced by those around us than we’d like to believe. Even our private sense of identity is highly context-dependent. (...)

Sommers: Yes, the real moral of the book is that personality is overrated. Why do we put so much stock in the idea of immutable character? The world is a frighteningly unpredictable place–it's reassuring to at least be able to hang our hats on the idea that the people around us are reliably predictable entities."