The Marshmallow Test
Understanding Self-Control
And How To Master It
Walter Mischel
Bantam Press
In the 1960s, psychologist Walter
Mischel tested children’s ability to resist
scoffing one marshmallow now, for the
chance to get two in a few minutes’
time. There was huge variation in the
kids’ ability to delay their pleasure.
Decades later, the researchers caught up
with many of their original volunteers,
and they found that those who
exhibited greater self-control in
childhood had gone on to perform
better at school, enjoy more successful
careers and live more healthily.
This makes it sound as if willpower is
a fixed trait, with some of us lucky
enough to be bestowed with more of it
than others. However, Mischel makes
the opposite case. He explains the ways
that we can all boost our self-control.
These includes “cooling” temptations to
make them less appealing; “heating” the
future to make it more vivid; and
rehearsing if-then plans, such as “If I’m
feeling hungry, then I will eat an apple”
as a way to develop healthier habits.
This book, from one of the giants of
modern psychology, is easy to read and
conveys an empowering message. But
the scientific content is rather
lightweight, which may leave some
readers unsatisfied.Planet Of The Bugs
Evolution And The Rise Of Insects
Scott Richard Shaw
Chicago University Press
If you want to appreciate biodiversity
and evolution and truly understand
how the natural world works, then
study the insects. They are predators
and prey, parasites and hosts, herbivores
and carnivores, swimmers and divers,
flyers and walkers. There is a
staggering diversity of them, in
astronomical numbers, in habitats
across the globe. To appreciate insects
is to appreciate life on this planet –
and it’s obvious from the prologue to
Planet Of The Bugs that Scott
Richard Shaw feels the same way.
Books on diversity aren’t hard to
find, nor are titles discussing form and
function. The ‘who’ and ‘how’ of insects
are taken care of, but the ‘why’ is less
well explored. Why did they evolve and
why are they so successful? Shaw
approaches these issues with a skilful
mix of academic authority and
humour. He guides us along an
evolutionary timeline that begins with
the Cambrian rise of arthropods and
ends in modern Ecuador
contemplating insect-like life on other
planets. This is a thought-provoking,
entertaining account of insect evolution
that will leave you hoping Shaw’s
“buggy universe hypothesis” is correct.The Human Age
The World Shaped By Us
Diane Ackerman
Headline
Some Geologists now include a
Human Age, or Anthropocene,
alongside the other great geological
eras, reflecting our species’ colossal
influence on Earth’s environment. But
where many authors get stuck
bemoaning the pollution, starvation,
overcrowding, climate change and
extinctions that humanity has wrought,
Diane Ackerman is more sanguine. For
her, the real human age is the age of
invention and technology, and how
these are not only changing our
biological and social make-up, but also
opening up new and uncharted futures.
‘Emotional robots’ are evolving the
capacity for self-awareness and empathy,
and also for deceit. Genetic
engineering will mean extinct species
can be reborn, and allow babies to be
assembled from a mosaic of genes, not
just those of two conventional parents.
3D printers promise a world in which
ears, kidneys and hearts can be made to
order, or you might prefer to grow
your own by cloning parts of yourself
from a skin cell.
It’s time to prepare for this new era,
and Ackerman gives us a thought-
provoking place to start, written in an
almost stream-of-consciousness style.
Philip Ball, whose Serving The Reich is on the
longlist for the Royal Society Winton Prize,
excels at taking obscure subjects and providing
erudite yet approachable explorations. So he
does in Invisible.
It’s easy to guess what a book on the science
of invisibility would be about. It would cover
natural camouflage, stealth technology,
metamaterial invisibility cloaks and video
concealment. As, indeed, Invisible does – but
only for around a quarter of its pages, because
Ball is not one for delivering the expected. Even
in these areas Ball can surprise, pointing out that
the chameleon, the poster animal for naturalcamouflage, likely changes colour more to
attract the opposite sex than to disappear.
Before we get there, though, the author takes
time to explore invisibility in folklore and
pseudoscience, séances and secret societies. It
can sometimes feel that the plethora of historical
oddities makes the topic so insubstantial that it
is almost transparent itself. Yet this exploration of
the borderline between rational thinking and
Invisible fantasy makes fascinating reading.
The Dangerous Lure Of The Unseen
Philip Ball
The Bodley HeadBRIAN CLEGG is the author of Life In A Random
Universe and The Quantum AgePROF ADAM HART is the co-presenter of
Hive Alive on BBC TwoDR CHRISTIAN JARRETT is author of
The Rough Guide To PsychologyPROF MARK PAGEL is head of the Evolutionary
Biology Group at the University of Reading