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Rule Makers, Rule Breakers
- Narrated by: Katherine Fenton
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
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Publisher's summary
In Rule Makers, Rule Breakers celebrated cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand takes us on an epic journey through human cultures, offering a startling new view of the world and ourselves. With a mix of brilliantly conceived studies and surprising on-the-ground discoveries, she shows that much of the diversity in the way we think and act derives from a key difference - how tightly or loosely we adhere to social norms.
Why are clocks in Germany so accurate while those in Brazil are frequently wrong? Why do New Zealand’s women have the highest number of sexual partners? Why are “Red” and “Blue” states really so divided? Why was the Daimler-Chrysler merger ill-fated from the start? Why is the driver of a Jaguar more likely to run a red light than the driver of a plumber’s van? Why does one spouse prize running a “tight ship” while the other refuses to “sweat the small stuff"?
In search of a common answer, Gelfand has spent two decades conducting research in more than 50 countries. Across all age groups, family variations, social classes, businesses, states, and nationalities, she’s identified a primal pattern that can trigger cooperation or conflict. Her fascinating conclusion: Behavior is highly influenced by the perception of threat.
With an approach that is consistently riveting, Rule Makers, Rule Breakers thrusts many of the puzzling attitudes and actions we observe into sudden and surprising clarity.
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Revolt is an eloquent and provocative challenge to the prevailing wisdom about the rise of nationalism and populism. With a vibrant and informed voice, Nadav Eyal illustrates how modern globalization is not sustainable. He contends that the collapse of the current world order is not so much about the imbalance between technological achievement and social progress or the breakdown of liberal democracy as it is about a passion to upend and destroy power structures that have become hollow, corrupt, or simply unresponsive to urgent needs.
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Good observations, very politically biased.
- By P. Bradley on 11-29-23
By: Nadav Eyal
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Who’s Your City?
- How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life
- By: Richard Florida
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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All places are not created equal. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Florida shows that where we live is increasingly a crucial factor in our lives, one that fundamentally affects our professional and personal prospects. As well as explaining why place matters now more than ever, Who's Your City? provides indispensable tools to help you choose the right place for you.
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Disappointing
- By Mimi Routh on 08-08-10
By: Richard Florida
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Imaginable
- How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything - Even Things That Seem Impossible Today
- By: Jane McGonigal
- Narrated by: Jane McGonigal
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly frequent climate disasters, a new war—events we might have called “unimaginable” or “unthinkable” in the past are now reality. Today it feels more challenging than ever to feel unafraid, hopeful, and equipped to face the future with optimism. How do we map out our lives when it seems impossible to predict what the world will be like next week, let alone next year or next decade? What we need now are strategies to help us recover our confidence and creativity in facing uncertain futures.
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Fabulous content, INSUFFERABLE narration!
- By Kelly on 05-24-22
By: Jane McGonigal
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The Mind of the Market
- Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics
- By: Michael Shermer
- Narrated by: Michael Shermer
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Abridged
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The Mind of the Market will change the way we think about the economics of everyday life. Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Michael Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy.
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Good ideas overshadowed by obnoxious polemics
- By Philo on 09-15-13
By: Michael Shermer
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Why Young Men
- The Dangerous Allure of Violent Movements and What We Can Do About It
- By: Jamil Jivani
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Jamil Jivani recounts his experiences working as a youth activist throughout North America and the Middle East, drawing striking parallels between ISIS recruits, gangbangers, and Neo-Nazis in the West. Having narrowly escaped a descent into crime and gang violence in his native Toronto, Jivani has devoted his life to helping other at-risk youths avoid this fate in cities across North America. After the Paris terrorist attacks of 2016, he traveled to Europe and the Middle East to assist Muslim community outreach groups focused on deterring ISIS recruitment.
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More of a memoir than a sociological tretise
- By Josh on 07-02-19
By: Jamil Jivani
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Coming Apart
- The State of White America, 1960–2010
- By: Charles Murray
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity.
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Brilliant & Flawed
- By Douglas C. Bates on 05-15-12
By: Charles Murray
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The Better Angels of Our Nature
- Why Violence Has Declined
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 36 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence.
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I'd kill for another book this good
- By Eric on 11-11-11
By: Steven Pinker
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Discrimination and Disparities
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Discrimination and Disparities challenges believers in such one-factor explanations of economic outcome differences as discrimination, exploitation, or genetics. It is listenable enough for people with no prior knowledge of economics. Yet the empirical evidence with which it backs up its analysis spans the globe and challenges beliefs across the ideological spectrum.
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Hard Pill To Swallow - I’m better for it
- By Charles on 01-14-19
By: Thomas Sowell
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The New Breed
- What Our History with Animals Reveals About Our Future with Robots
- By: Kate Darling
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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There has been a lot of ink devoted to discussions of how robots will replace us and take our jobs. But MIT Media Lab researcher and technology policy expert Kate Darling argues just the opposite, and that treating robots with a bit of humanity, more like the way we treat animals, will actually serve us better.
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The book is interesting, and makes good points, but Kate darling forgot about slavery in history
- By jeremy on 10-24-21
By: Kate Darling
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Our Political Nature
- The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us
- By: Avi Tuschman
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Our Political Nature is the first book to reveal the hidden roots of our most deeply held moral values. It shows how political orientations across space and time arise from three clusters of measurable personality traits. These clusters entail opposing attitudes toward tribalism, inequality, and differing perceptions of human nature. Together, these traits are by far the most powerful cause of left-right voting, even leading people to regularly vote against their economic interests.
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A Trivial Version of Haidt's "The Righteous Mind"
- By Curt Doolittle on 10-29-13
By: Avi Tuschman
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The Way We Never Were
- American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
- By: Stephanie Coontz
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man's home has never been his castle, the "male breadwinner marriage" is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the 1970s than they are today. In The Way We Never Were, acclaimed historian Stephanie Coontz examines two centuries of the American family, sweeping away misconceptions about the past that cloud current debates about domestic life. The 1950s do not present a workable model of how to conduct our personal lives today, Coontz argues.
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fantastic report on the dangers of nostalgia
- By Richard Stine on 06-29-21
By: Stephanie Coontz
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What listeners say about Rule Makers, Rule Breakers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Dave S.
- 10-23-18
A Must Read
Ms. Gelfand is brilliant!!
This book gave me a new lens to view everything from global events down to the relationship with my wife. I'm particularly fascinated with the way tight/loose finds logic in why the world has such a dizzying array of social norms. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will forever have a new way of looking at the world.
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- David
- 07-20-22
Illuminating
Recommended for anyone desiring to get a greater understanding and perspective on today's polarizing forces.
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- Joe
- 10-15-18
Long and drawn out
The book had interesting points and perspective; however it went from my running listen to my sleep aid. Found the content and reader’s voice repetitive and uninteresting.
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- John Simon
- 03-03-19
Great (Must) Listen...
This book is a must listen for future and present leaders, and an exemplification of how ‘use-cases’ mustn’t be seen in a vacuum, but observed and understood in the fluid marketplace of ideas.
Culture is the dark matter of socialization.
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- Cleve
- 04-04-19
Defies easy categorization
This book is well worth the read. The underlying concept is very interesting and it gave me several new insights. That being said I suspect the author is a better scientist than she is an author. Parts of the book were too long. At times it made me recall Richard Feynman‘s remark about categorization. Giving things names and putting them into categories by itself doesn’t necessarily tell you anything useful. There was a little bit too much categorization and enumeration for me. If you are a detail person though you might like that.
The narration had problems. The narrator mispronounced a number of words that should be known to someone reading an academically oriented work. The phrasing was sometimes off too. Mark Twain said that Wagner‘s music was better than it sounded. I sort of think that about this book.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Phil
- 03-18-22
Eye opening!!!
Articulated ideas that I was beginning to suspect from my own reading if history and current events.
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- XiaoHu
- 03-27-20
More convincing at the macro-level
The argument is more convincing at the country and sub-country levels but once it is extended to individual level, it is less valid. There are just way too many cases that don’t fit well with her simple characterization of tightness and looseness. A wealthy person can very well be the type of conformity for example, not the loose type as argued by the book. A person can be both tight and loose, depending on circumstances. These circumstances are so many in different social, organizational, and cross-national contexts so it could render the underlying principle of tightness and looseness invalid.
The book talks about culture and social norms. Individual behaviors are of course influenced by these attributes but not dictated by them. This seems to be the problem of the book---exaggerated roles of social influences on individuals. But, again, its arguments at the country-level and sub-country levels are plausible probably because cultural plays a larger role in social settings and, plus, there are smaller chances of deviation from much smaller sample size (there are around 200 countries in the world, compared to millions or billions of people inside a country).
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- Twain
- 04-22-22
Great stuff and redundant
I wish this had been presented in the form of either an essay or a novella.
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- Stevo
- 09-14-18
An interesting lens to look through
This book will reward your patience. It ties a bunch of ideas together into a single unifying idea. A distinction between tightness and looseness.
It moves really slowly at first. You feel like it is pretty subtle, the difference between her tightness/looseness and ideas you may have read about a cultures individualism/collectivism. It moves on to talk about tightness/looseness on an individual level which seems similar to "openness" from the Big Five personality traits.
Once there, and tying the concept from society to individual level into a single concept it starts delivering insights as it expands on causes of tightness/looseness. It steps you through the forces at play on social class, differences in US states, lessons that can be drawn regarding the election of Donald Trump, corporate cultures, mergers and acquisitions, marital problems, Arab spring revolutions, and populism.
It is a book that belongs alongside Jonathan Haidt and Martin Seligman on a bookshelf.
It’s my own preference that this sort of book that comes out of academia and spends pages building an idea to not skip the sentence that anticipates your objections. A sentence or two that goes something like: "Singapore and New Zealand are outliers in this case. Controlling for a country's wealth, the tightness/looseness of a country is a significant variable on life expectancy to a 90% confidence interval" or whatever. But she does not include that sentence. You don't know if she has controlled for wealth in this instance. And you don't know why she has switched examples from New Zealand and Singapore to Ukraine and Turkey beyond that is supports the point she is trying to make right now. Since she is an academic, you are best off just to trust her that she is not being disingenuous, and that these models have been correctly set up.
It is an interesting way of looking at things that delivers insight. It’s worth a credit and the time investment. I feel like I will take the perspective from this book and use it in the way I look at certain problems. That is valuable.
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- NP
- 09-12-21
Explains a LOT, pro tolerance and listening.
Explains a LOT, pro tolerance and listening. Explains the balancing act, when one extreme always topples to the other. People need the sweet spot. in business, you can use some of these tools on motivation and convincing.
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