Professor of Social Psychology at Radboud University Nijmegen, Prof. Dr. Roos Vonk, in her new book Human Defects for Advanced Students, tackles a society full of spoiled princes and princesses who ‘have a right to happiness’ and who consider themselves very special.
Author:
Rose Spark
Year of publication:
Price:
€18.95
ISBN:
9789055948185
Number of pages:
199
Roos Vonk argues in her new book for self-relativity and a broader view. By enduring discomfort and assuming that you are just like everyone else, you come to more self-knowledge and freedom of choice. The book outlines painfully recognizable human errors and fallacies. Supported by recent psychological research, it also offers insight into how to take control of your life and achieve ‘a more fun version of yourself’.
navel gazing
Navel-gazing, being true to yourself, expressing your feelings, malleability, the right to happiness: it seems to be a guarantee for the current emergence of more and more spoiled princes and princesses. We have become adrift in the desire for individuality. By being so busy with ourselves, we live in a very small world. “It seems so sensitive and authentic: ‘follow your feelings’ and ‘don’t go beyond your limits’. But it is often just putting your way through it,” says Roos Vonk. You become wiser and freer by looking around you. And you come to more self-knowledge by assuming that you are just like everyone else.
Thinking errors and biases
The book contains various examples of thinking errors and distortions that arise unconsciously, so that we ourselves do not realize that we are making that mistake. For example, we consider ourselves very individualistic, but in fact we usually move with what most people do. Think of the popularity of products such as usury policy and buying meat from factory farming. We do a lot of things that we have lingering questions about in our hearts because we are simply herd animals. Self-deception and stupidity therefore seem to occur only in other people. But those other people see it again with us.
Feet on the floor
Yet you can also break through group patterns as a loner. Getting and keeping control, so that your behavior and your choices are in line with what you want to mean in the world. That is one of the goals the author has in mind with this book: that we become a better – more fun, more effective – version of ourselves by ‘keeping our feet on the ground and still rising above ourselves’.
Educational and light-hearted
To this end, our shortcomings are treated ruthlessly but with humor. How the passion disappears in a good relationship, and why it helps if you have a ‘wrong man’. Or are. Why power promotes creativity and thinking about sex doesn’t. The fun of gloating, and why earning more than makes others happy. The illusion that enthusiasm helps against incompetence, and many other forms of wishful thinking. With her sharp and light-hearted observations, Vonk makes us happy to recognize our own shortcomings. In this way, the reader is given a healthy dose of self-relativity.
About the author
Roos Vonk is professor of Social Psychology at Radboud University Nijmegen. She is also a freelance trainer/speaker and columnist at Psychology Magazine and Intermediair. Previously published by her The first impression and Egos and other inconveniences.