Annotated Bibliography

Immune to Reality

“Immune to Reality” by Daniel Gilbert discusses the trends of common human psychology and its implications on how individuals ultimately feel. The essay begins with an anecdote about a “clever” horse who seems to answer its owners questions correctly, but is later revealed to be simply reading its owner’s body language. Gilbert uses this to lead into a discussion on what he refers to as the psychological immune system, which basically describes the phenomenon that when we are exposed to favorable facts and accept them subconsciously, we are unaware of our subterfuge. People do not know the reasons behind their actions; yet, when prompted for these reasons their minds scramble to create some. The process by which individuals deliberately attempt to find positivity and happiness in their everyday lives is ultimately portrayed by Gilbert is inefficient and ineffectual. This essay would enable me to analyze the way individuals unconsciously order their lives and possible connect it to another essay about psychology.

When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It was Friday (420)

“When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It was Friday” by Martha Stout leads a detailed discussion about the term divided consciousness and its implications on the way individuals interact with their environment. Stout define this term as the instances in which individuals mentally withdraw from the world around them. She explains that daydreams and other types of escape help people maintain their mental sanity by allowing them to shut out events that seem threatening or overwhelming. This seems to easily relate to O’Brien’s essay in its discussion of the acknowledgment of threatening events (such as experience in war). Stout also seems to be arguing a point similar to Gilbert, as they both discuss the disparity between deliberately taking action for a specific outcome and allowing things to unravel on their own. Therefore, this essay could be easily incorporated into what I may choose to discuss in my research paper. 

How to Tell a True War Story (316)

In “How to Tell a True War Story,” Tim O’Brien discusses the disparity between what is told to have happened and what actually happened by using the concept of war stories. He begins the essay with the words “this is true” and thereafter proceeds to tell his own war story, thus complicating his argument and inciting the reader to question if his story is actually true. O’Brien makes several points to contribute to his discussion, several being that a true war story has no moral, it cannot be believed in many cases, it cannot even be told in other cases, it often has no point (and when it does it does not occur to an individual until twenty years later), and it was never about war in the first place. These claims are expertly integrated into the body of the essay with lively and interconnected anecdotes from O’Brien’s own experiences in Vietnam, and are supported and explained in a way that grabs the reader’s attention and holds it throughout the entire essay. In fact, it hardly feels like one is reading an essay; O’Brien’s writing makes the piece seem more like a movie in that the reader is being addressed and feels involved. With the degree of uniqueness this essay holds, I feel that it could add an interesting perspective to my research paper. Since it relies so heavily on anecdotes, I could frame it within other essays. 

Avoiding a Path to Nowhere by Jal D. Mehta

“Avoiding a Path to Nowhere” is a citation in the essay “Biographies of Hegemony” in the New Humanities Reader. It is an article published online by the Harvard Crimson which discusses the distinction between being a creator and being a borrower of ideas. It begins with a hook detailing I-banking and consulting, and thereafter leads into a discussion of how Harvard’s student body consists of three main types of people: the extra-high achievers who simply want the money that good jobs offer, those who are not economically well off and thus have an honest reason to seek well-paying jobs, and those who simply seek good jobs because they do not know what better to do with their lives. Interestingly, Mehta analyzes this last group’s reasoning and uses it to support her idea that individuals should be innovative and invent their own options, and rather than expecting success to fall upon them they should actively work toward their long-term potential. This is very similar to Gilbert’s argument, which is that people should actively work toward long-term happiness; this would allow me to easily incorporate this as material for analysis in my research paper. 

“Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes” - Richard Nisbett

"Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes," by Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson of the University of Michigan is an article published in the Psychological Review, which is a scientific journal housing articles concerning psychological theory. This article reviews evidence that concerns higher order cognition, and suggests that there may be no direct conscious and introspective access to higher cognitive processes. It is organized into three main sections which discuss (a) how people are unaware of stimuli that influence their responses, (b) how people are unaware of the existence of their own response, and (c) how people are unaware that the stimuli have in fact influenced their responses. By further dividing these sections into subsections, the authors succeed in discussing each detail of evidence and supporting their ultimate claim--that higher order cognition can not be held back by the limiting qualities of introspection. The writing grabs the readers attention from the very beginning, as it is introduced with a concise and relatable hook. The tone is very deliberate and analytical—the authors succeed in breaking apart each of their own sources and piecing them back together little by little in order to better read the sources in this argument's context. This source will be easily incorporated into my research paper since it is written very explicitly and relates to the theme I may focus on.