Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the WorstPeople—especially Americans—are by and large optimists. They're much better at imagining best-case scenarios (I could win the lottery!) than worst-case scenarios (A hurricane could destroy my neighborhood!). This is true not just of their approach to imagining the future, but of their memories as well: people are better able to describe the best moments of their lives than they are the worst. “In Never Saw It Coming, Karen Cerulo argues that in American society there is a ‘positive symmetry,’ a tendency to focus on and exaggerate the best, the winner, the most optimistic outcome and outlook. Thus, the conceptions of the worst are underdeveloped and elided. Naturally, as she masterfully outlines, there are dramatic consequences to this characterological inability to imagine and prepare for the worst, as the failure to heed memos leading up to both the 9/11 and NASA Challenger disasters, for instance, so painfully reminded us.”--Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Swarthmore College “Katrina, 9/11, and the War in Iraq—all demonstrate the costliness of failing to anticipate worst-case scenarios. Never Saw It Coming explains why it is so hard to do so: adaptive behavior hard-wired into human cognition is complemented and reinforced by cultural practices, which are in turn institutionalized in the rules and structures of formal organizations. But Karen Cerulo doesn’t just diagnose the problem; she uses case studies of settings in which people effectively anticipate and deal with potential disaster to describe structural solutions to the chronic dilemmas she describes so well. Never Saw It Coming is a powerful contribution to the emerging fields of cognitive and moral sociology.”--Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University |
From inside the book
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... definition. In many situations, the worst simply cannot be pinned down. Why would the worst prove problematic to conceive? Many would argue that the challenge stems from emotional or psychological forces. For some, envisioning the worst ...
... definition. In many situa- tions, the worst simply cannot be pinned down. Why would the worst prove problematic to conceive? Many would argue that the challenge stems from emotional or psycho- logical forces. For some, envisioning the ...
... definitions of the best things in life.3 But a few moments later, I asked my classes, What's the worst thing that ... definition of the best, one that garners a swift and standard response. But Clayman found a notable difference in ...
... definition . In this way , proceeding toward the worst requires an adjustment of both relativity and clarity , of both position and accessibility . The worst - case pole of the quality continuum is simulta- neously oppositional and ...
... definitions and labels to emotions—the meanings that arise from “the dif- ferentiated conditions of interaction and social organization”—is the factor that truly endows emotions with social import, particularly at the collective level ...
Contents
1 | |
17 | |
3 Practicing Positive Asymmetry | 72 |
4 Positive Asymmetry and the Subjective Side of Scientific Measurement | 122 |
5 Being Labeled the Worst Real in Its Consequences? | 139 |
6 Exceptions to the Rule | 164 |
7 Emancipating Structures and Cognitive Styles | 193 |
8 Can Symmetrical Vision Be Achieved? | 233 |
Acknowledgments | 344 |
1 Whats the Worst That Could Happen? | 1 |
2 The Breadth and Scope of Positive Asymmetry | 17 |
3 Practicing Positive Asymmetry | 72 |
4 Positive Asymmetry and the Subjective Side of Scientific Measurement | 122 |
5 Being Labeled the Worst Real in Its Consequences? | 139 |
6 Exceptions to the Rule | 164 |
7 Emancipating Structures and Cognitive Styles | 193 |
Notes | 245 |
References | 279 |
Index | 315 |
Contents | 342 |
8 Can Symmetrical Vision Be Achieved? | 233 |
Notes | 245 |
References | 279 |
Index | 315 |
Other editions - View all
Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst Karen A. Cerulo Limited preview - 2008 |
Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst Karen A. Cerulo No preview available - 2006 |
Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst Karen A. Cerulo No preview available - 2006 |