Review by New York Times Review
"AWKWARD PEOPLE SHOULD try to pay attention to the big picture and focus less intensely on narrow areas of interest," Ty Tashiro tells us near the end of "Awkward" - his new popular-social-psychology book, complete with a suitably awkward subtitle - "but the reality is that it's not as easy as flipping a switch." He adds, "All of this seems obvious, but so are most psychological liabilities when viewed from an outside perspective." Well, yes. And as with many books about social psychology, so are quite a few of the other theories, findings and conclusions presented here - maybe more so than in Tashiro's first pop psych book, "The Science of Happily Ever After," which offered slightly more novel insights into its field of interest, the personal qualities that can promote successful long-term relationships. (Obviously bad: neuroticism. Obviously good: agreeableness. Less obviously good than you might think: openness, which sometimes opens people to affairs.) In "Awkward," Tashiro - himself socially awkward since childhood - makes the case that awkwardness deserves its own category on the seemingly ever-expanding spectrum, somewhere below Asperger's syndrome and autism. The book's central assertions are these: 1. Awkward people are less adept than others at comprehending and responding appropriately to general social situations and nonverbal interpersonal emotional cues. This is because, instead, 2. Awkward people tend to "spotlight" specific details of personal interactions. This tendency can make it challenging to form friendships and join peer groups, but 3. "Awkward people also getto see whatever falls into their spotlight with brilliant detail." And with proper training, education and exercises, awkward people can learn to be less awkward. 4. And, anyway, the internet has helped awkward people form friendships founded on special interests, but, on the other hand (so many hands!), 5. The internet may also have harmed human connections, because "many of the social cues humans have relied on for thousands of years are absent online." 6. Nevertheless, awkwardness often goes gracefully hand in hand with giftedness and what Ellen Winner, a psychology professor at Boston College, dramatically calls "the rage to master" - a frequent concomitant of giftedness. And that's why, according to Tashiro, awkwardness can be "awesome." Winner is probably primus inter pares of the scholars cited by Tashiro. As with much pop psychology, the 50 or so sections of "Awkward" agglomerate the findings of dozens of academic studies to support the book's ideas. This is meant to infuse the aroma of scholarship and, more important these days, to datify the book's claims in an effort to render human interactions as objective, measurable phenomena. In fact, "Awkward" sort of succeeds that way once it stops re-establishing the obvious. Although nothing cited here approaches the social science drama of, say, the literally shocking Stanley Milgram experiment (in which participants were encouraged to zap their peers) or Philip Zimbardo's famous "prison" study (during which ordinary people, arbitrarily labelled prisoners and guards, turned vicious), "Awkward" contains many useful and resonant observations about everyday interactions : the surprising social skills that often accompany bullying, for instance, or the unconscious scorecards we keep to numerically rank our positive and negative encounters with people we know. And there is a further, more important virtue of "Awkward," which becomes clear when it's compared with another new and somewhat similarly social-scientific interpersonal-relations treatise, with another loose-limbed title that tries too hard to be casual: Alan Alda's "If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?" Alda - the actor, director, screenwriter, host of "Scientific American Frontiers" on PBS, author of two best-selling memoirs, founder of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, etc. - here spells out his efforts to help scientists explain their work to laypeople through the methods used in improvisational theater and other techniques. These include consciously mirroring the expressions of people speaking to us (something most of us do unconsciously all the time), as well as storytelling, practicing empathy and so on. LIKE TASHIRO, ALDA cites the results of many academic psychological experiments to support his claims. And like Tashiro, he knows how to exemplify his ideas - here, for example, he discusses the dark side of empathy as employed by the great boxer Bernard Hopkins: "He won matches not so much by knocking heads as by reading minds. Like a good communicator, he could read the body language of an opponent and know what he was thinking. He was able to attack an opponent's strategy even before he had to attack his person." Alda also deadens his pan nicely in many places: "A survey of 2,000 people in England," he writes, "found that four out of 10 people have been injured opening packages. In one case... the new purchase was a pair of scissors." There's no question that Alda's work with scientists and doctors - thousands of them, at this point - has admirably helped them communicate with the rest of us, especially patients. But his book too often settles for anodyne and sometimes repetitive commentary: "Being truly connected to the other person happens when we see them in a way that's both emotional and rational." "An awareness of similarity seems to be worth exploring, because it's helpful in figuring out what the other person is thinking." Alda wants to be charming here and sometimes succeeds - but not nearly so often as Tashiro does in "Awkward," which contains many beguilements, some of them surely inadvertent and therefore all the more beguiling. Advertent: "Pornhub reports that there was an 845 percent increase in demand for bunny pornography around Easter and an 8,000 percent increase for leprechaun pornography around St. Patrick's Day." Inadvertent (maybe): "When people try too hard to delay the natural progression of commitment, the relationship can be like a duck that was put in the oven too early and now suffers under a heat lamp that robs it of flavor and dries it far past well done." Ah, yes! The Overdone Duck Relationship Delay. We've all been there. With training, education and exercises, awkward people can learn to be less awkward. DANIEL MENAKER, former executive editor in chief of Random House, is the author of six books, including "A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
Alda, known for his acting in shows like M*A*S*H and The West Wing, has been exploring his deep interest in the sciences for the last several decades, as the host of Scientific American Frontiers (which ended its 12-year run in 2015) and as the founder of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, at Stony Brook University. It is his work with the latter that Alda draws on, although this inquiry was in part inspired by his work with the series. Alda noticed when speaking with scientists that often their explanations went way over laypeople's heads; conversely, when he started his work on Scientific American Frontiers, his assumptions about his own knowledge hindered his dialogue with experts. Alda lays out how improv techniques such as mirroring can help improve communications skills, and he stresses how important active listening is to a successful conversation. He goes on to illustrate how essential these skills are in all walks of life, from motivating employees to reaching autistic children. This is an enlightening and thoughtful combination of shared experience and advice.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Fans of the show MASH will enjoy just hearing actor and comedian Alda's friendly, quirky voice. Of course, there's humor here and there, but Alda's intentions aren't comic: his purpose is to help people learn to listen to each other and in turn to be better, clearer, and more empathic communicators. He shares his experiences teaching improvisation workshops at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York, where he and a variety of other researchers have explored how to improve communication in all aspects of life. He relays tips from these workshops, advising listeners to pay attention to body language, for example, and to hear what is actually spoken instead of thinking about what we are going to say or ask next. Alda's charm, conversational style, and use of vocal cues will make the listener want to try the methods he describes. A Random House hardcover. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Today, we have more ways to communicate than ever before, but how well are we actually communicating? As founder of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, the beloved actor and author helps researchers learn essential skills that can help them communicate their work to a wider audience. The center also trains health-care professionals, with the aim of improving their relationships with patients. It's not only scientific concepts that need clarification; the content of our daily lives can be better expressed and understood. Alda utilizes methods that he has learned at the center and through his work as an actor to explore how we can become better listeners and communicators. Drawing on a range of scientific and social science research, as well as his work in improvisation and directing, Alda outlines the steps and missteps in relating to other people in productive, meaningful ways. VERDICT Alda brings a distinct perspective with his trademark warmth and humor. As he addresses current popular themes in general nonfiction, readers can imagine his voice and expressions in recounting his experiences, making this book's content even more welcoming.-Meagan Storey, Virginia Beach © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A distinguished actor and communication expert shows how to avoid "the snags of misunderstanding" that plague verbal interactions between human beings.When Alda (Things I Overhead While Talking to Myself, 2007, etc.) first began hosting the PBS series Scientific American Frontiers in 1993, he had no idea how much the job would change his life. In the 20 years that followed, he developed an enduring fascination with "trying to figure out what makes communication work." As a TV show host who interviewed scientists and engineers, Alda became painfully aware of his own shortcomings as a communicator and how his background as an actor could help him improve. In the first section of the book, he discusses how effective communication requires listening with ears, eyes, and feelings wide open. Drawing from research, interactions with science professionals, and his work as an actor, Alda reveals how individuals who aren't "naturally good" communicators can learn to become more adept by practicing their overall relating skills. He describes activities like the "mirror exercise," in which partners observe and mimic each other's actions and speech. Not only do people learn how to focus on each other, but they also "strengthen cohesion and promote cooperation" in groups. In the second section, Alda, who founded the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, points out the importance of empathy in communication. He discusses, among others, an exercise that forced him to name the feelings he saw others express. Raising awareness of emotion increases empathy levels, which can trigger the release of oxytocin, the feel-good "love hormone." By adding emotion to communication, using storytelling, avoiding jargon, and eliminating the assumption that others share the same knowledge base, message senders can forge closer bonds with recipients. The book's major strength comes from Alda's choice to take an interprofessional approach and avoid offering prescriptive methods to enhance interpersonal understanding. As he writes, communication "is a dance we learn by trusting ourselves to take the leap, not by mechanically following a set of rules." A sharp and informative guide to communication. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
