杏吧原创

EXPERIMENTAL psychology is able to say many interesting things about the human mind. Approaching the discipline in a light-hearted way, as this book does, can be no bad thing, but that is no excuse for being thoughtless about it.

One of the chief concerns of this survey is to banish any notion that Freud might be worthwhile. He has been discredited by 鈥渟cientific scrutiny鈥�, we are told, and in his stead we are offered a banquet of psychological schools, often several to a page, along with a great many statistics and descriptions of disorders: 19.4 per cent of us worry once every two to three days; there are more synapses inside our brains than there are atoms in the universe; arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one鈥檚 mouth.

Psychology is presented as a series of -isms, schools of thought that rush past the reader like plates of sushi on an accelerated restaurant conveyor belt. Up floats an aroma of each school鈥檚 terminology and then it is off before you can taste its meat.

What are we to make of a book that tells us there are four styles of parenting, 17 rules of friendship, 16 human desires, five human motivations and 10 sorts of personality disorder? Enumerating 16 kinds of human desire may be useful as an illustration, but presenting arbitrary divisions as though they are profound truths turns something of potential value into pretentiousness. It鈥檚 this that spoils the book, manifested in the spurious accuracy of 鈥�19.4 per cent鈥�, the false authority of the 鈥渞ules鈥� of friendship, the overly enthusiastic use of jargon. More synapses in the brain than atoms in the universe? Each synapse is made of atoms 鈥� and quite a few of them. Using lots of statistics doesn鈥檛 make a statement scientific, and pretending it does can mangle thoughtful psychology until it becomes psychobabble.

鈥淥nly connect!鈥� is the gnomic advice given by the character Margaret Schlegel in E. M. Forster鈥檚 novel Howards End. This book gives the same advice, citing not Forster but UK government recommendations for happiness based on 鈥渁dvice from more than 400 specialists鈥�. Somehow, the advice loses its evocative power when presented in this way.

Great writing, be it about art or science, enriches the world. The sense one has at the end of this book is of diminution, as though experimental psychology were capable not of insights but only of trivialities and factoids. Use Your Head offers the feeling not so much of an inside track as of a short cut. Thinking about the human mind demands something better.