Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World

by Sam Sommers

Overview

A “thought-provoking and entertaining” (The Washington Post) exploration of the invisible forces that influence your life—and how understanding them improves everything you do.

The world around you is pulling your strings, shaping your private thoughts and innermost instincts. And you don’t even realize it. 

Every day we overlook the enormous power of situations in our lives. We fail to appreciate that life’s basic details—where we are, whom we’re with, and even whether we’re in a hurry—affect how we think and act. Sommers argues that understanding the powerful influence of context forces us to rethink how we see ourselves and makes us more effective at work, at home, and in our daily lives. He describes the pitfalls that we should avoid and offers compelling suggestions on how we can make better decisions and smarter observations about the world around us. Insightful, engaging, and readable, Situations Matter is a primer on the importance of context in our lives and on what really makes people tick.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594486203
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/31/2012
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sam Sommers is an award-winning psychology professor at Tufts University. His research has been covered by Good Morning America, NPR, Harper’s, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. He lives near Boston with his wife and two daughters.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 Wysiwyg 13

2 Help Wanted 49

3 Go With The Flow 87

4 You're Not The Person You Thought You Were 125

5 Mars And Venus Here On Earth 159

6 Love 197

7 Hate 233

Epilogue 277

Acknowledgments 289

Notes 293

Bibliography 301

Index 315

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Thought-provoking and entertaining.”—The Washington Post

“A fascinating glimpse into the way our most important judgments are framed by the world around us.”—Salon.com

“[Situations Matter] offers inspiration to outsmart any situation.”—Psychology Today

“Perhaps the least understood forces in the universe are the social powers that drive our thoughts and behavior. Sam Sommers is an expert at identifying these influences, and in Situations Matter he takes us on an entertaining and engaging guided tour.” —Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality

“Understanding and appreciating the power of situations gives you a leg up in life, and Situations Matter is the best place to start investigating this challenge. It is excellent, entertaining reading for anyone interested in classic human questions about morality, conformity, and the real differences between men and women.” —Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics, George Mason University, and author of Create Your Own Economy and The Great Stagnation

“It can be easy to overlook how ordinary situations shape behavior. It might seem like Sam Sommers is brilliant for choosing to write a book on this important topic, but he'd probably just explain that circumstance drove him to it. Still, we're all lucky he did.” – Leonard Mlodinow, author of The Drunkard’s Walk and co-author of The Grand Design

“I loved Situations Matter. True, I read it while sitting on my comfortable couch, but I bet I would have loved it no matter the situation, even if I read it submerged in ice-cold water. Sam Sommers shows us the surprising extent to which humans are influenced by external factors. It's a fascinating read, and one that will improve your life in many ways, whether dealing with road rage, choosing a spouse, or trying to handle your boss.” —A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically and My Life as an Experiment

“This book is a true eye-opener. From the boardroom meeting to the dining room table, from why we love to why we hate, you'll never look at the ordinary world around you in exactly the same way again.” —Wray Herbert, author of On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits

Editorial Reviews

Thought-provoking and entertaining.”—The Washington Post

“A fascinating glimpse into the way our most important judgments are framed by the world around us.”—Salon.com

“[Situations Matter] offers inspiration to outsmart any situation.”—Psychology Today 

“Perhaps the least understood forces in the universe are the social powers that drive our thoughts and behavior. Sam Sommers is an expert at identifying these influences, and in Situations Matter he takes us on an entertaining and engaging guided tour.”  —Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality

“Understanding and appreciating the power of situations gives you a leg up in life, and Situations Matter is the best place to start investigating this challenge. It is excellent, entertaining reading for anyone interested in classic human questions about morality, conformity, and the real differences between men and women.” —Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics, George Mason University, and author of Create Your Own Economy and The Great Stagnation

“It can be easy to overlook how ordinary situations shape behavior. It might seem like Sam Sommers is brilliant for choosing to write a book on this important topic, but he'd probably just explain that circumstance drove him to it. Still, we're all lucky he did.” – Leonard Mlodinow, author of The Drunkard’s Walk and co-author of The Grand Design

“I loved Situations Matter.  True, I read it while sitting on my comfortable couch, but I bet I would have loved it no matter the situation, even if I read it submerged in ice-cold water.  Sam Sommers shows us the surprising extent to which humans are influenced by external factors.  It's a fascinating read, and one that will improve your life in many ways, whether dealing with road rage, choosing a spouse, or trying to handle your boss.”  —A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically and My Life as an Experiment

“This book is a true eye-opener.  From the boardroom meeting to the dining room table, from why we love to why we hate, you'll never look at the ordinary world around you in exactly the same way again.” —Wray Herbert, author of On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits

From the Publisher

Situations Matter offers a blend of weighty and whimsical insights that makes for a thought-provoking and entertaining read.
—The Washington Post

Rachel Newcomb

With a conversational, laid-back tone and a penchant for storytelling, Tufts University psychology professor Sommers explores the power of context, its ability to “shape our private sense of self, color our notion of the differences between men and women, determine who we love and who we hate.” Most potently, Sommers investigates the notion that “when surrounded by others, we become different people than when we’re on our own.” He finds context responsible for why we feel safer (but more impotent) in crowds, why being reminded of gender stereotypes makes girls do poorly on math tests, and how your apartment building’s floor plan determines how many dates you get. In prose peppered with pop culture anecdotes and stories from his own life, Sommers keeps reader engaged as he unpacks how self-perception affects performance and how mastery of the unspoken norms that govern situations will “alter the way you think about human nature, thereby making you a more effective person...and navigate your social universe more shrewdly.” The book shares its heritage with the bestselling Influence by Robert B. Cialdini. It trots out similar studies and cases, with only a slight twist on Cialdini’s original thesis about power and politics. With its softer approach toward deploying these techniques (referencing awareness more than power) and its personal references, Sommers’s book is the lighter, more pleasurable version. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Just as a frame in an art museum accentuates aspects of the painting it surrounds, so do ordinary situations impact the way people act and think. So posits Sommers (psychology, Tufts Univ.), who won the Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence from the American Psychology-Law Society, as he tries to help readers better understand human behavior and become more effective in relationships with others. He uses familiar sitcom characters, advertising campaigns, and the universal experience of sitting in a traffic jam to explain how expectations and stereotypes affect behavior. He advises readers to look past labels and snap judgments and find what people have in common. Sommers here provides captivating insights into the human psyche.

Library Journal

Psychology professor Sam Sommers has gathered together provocative studies that examine how the context of situations influences our behavior and our self-concept. He jettisons the idea of an authentic self, arguing that our identities are flexible. Joshua Swanson’s lively performance has a dash of the slightly nerdy professor. He engages the listener’s attention as Sommers ranges from a frightening discussion of how crowd conformity does more to contribute to genocide and war crimes than do a few bad apples to lighter but equally fascinating data on how we are more likely to marry someone in the neighborhood. Sommers includes amusing anecdotes from his life with small children to show how he still misjudges situations even when he knows better. Swanson perfectly captures that humorous self-deprecation. A.B. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2012 - AudioFile

Psychology professor Sam Sommers has gathered together provocative studies that examine how the context of situations influences our behavior and our self-concept. He jettisons the idea of an authentic self, arguing that our identities are flexible. Joshua Swanson’s lively performance has a dash of the slightly nerdy professor. He engages the listener’s attention as Sommers ranges from a frightening discussion of how crowd conformity does more to contribute to genocide and war crimes than do a few bad apples to lighter but equally fascinating data on how we are more likely to marry someone in the neighborhood. Sommers includes amusing anecdotes from his life with small children to show how he still misjudges situations even when he knows better. Swanson perfectly captures that humorous self-deprecation. A.B. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2012 - AudioFile

Sommers (Psychology/Tufts Univ.) pokes holes in the comfortable assumption that our actions are driven by character. The author calls attention to how our behavior is influenced by the context of the situations we face, invoking the software term WYSIWYG to describe the way people tend to accept an "oversimplified picture of human nature, clinging as we do to the belief that what you see is what you get." He refers to a 2009 experiment--modeled on Stanley Milgram's much-cited earlier version--to illustrate how ordinary people can be induced to administer torture. Participants were partnered in what they were told was an experiment on the effect of punishment on learning. The job of one was to administer increasingly powerful shocks whenever the other (actually an actor pretending to be shocked) gave a wrong answer. A lab-coated experimenter encouraged the teacher to continue to the end of the protocol, despite agonized screams from the next room begging him to stop. When the setting for the experiment was a university, 65 percent continued to administer increasingly powerful shocks; however, when the so-called experimenter dressed informally, only 20 percent were willing to follow his prompts and continue. Sommers suggests that children are cued to the "ubiquitous societal norms regarding gender," which accounts for much of what we accept as biologically determined gender behavior. An enjoyable guide for would-be free-thinkers on how to recognize social influences that shape behavior.

Kirkus Reviews