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Science of Consequences: How They Affect Genes, Change the Brain, and Impact Our World
Actions have consequences--and the ability to learn from them revolutionized life on earth. While it's easy enough to see that consequences are important (where would we be without positive reinforcement?), few have heard there's a science of consequences, with principles that affect us every day. What's more, nature and nurture always work together, and learning often drives the flexibility in the system - routinely modifying our neurophysiology. Applications are everywhere, throughout everyday life, even helping fight prejudice, free addicts of their destructive habits, and treat depression. This science enriches the lives of pets and zoo animals, while also shedding light on our biggest societal challenges, where we must choose between short-term and long-term consequences. A unique and fascinating introduction to a science that is epic in scope.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
102 people are currently reading
1986 people want to read
About the author
Susan M. Schneider
5 books25 followersAfter an engineering career and a stint in the Peace Corps, I obtained a PhD in psychology and had an academic career. My award-winning book for the public, The Science of Consequences, covers basic learning principles (like positive reinforcement), their important role in nature-nurture relations, and their many applications. The book earned coverage in top journal Nature and led to an international book tour. A lifelong environmental activist, I now mainly work on bringing these behavior principles to bear on the climate crisis. We need all the help we can get . . .
For more information about my background and interests, see the Author page on my website: http://www.scienceofconsequences.com/....
For more information about my background and interests, see the Author page on my website: http://www.scienceofconsequences.com/....
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 30, 2014
It feels really weird giving this book 3 stars. I'm a behaviorally oriented therapist, I love (LOVE) B.F. Skinner and I'm a functional contextual behaviorism evangelist. Consequences should have been a slam dunk. But there was something about the writing and structure of the book that kept throwing me out of the experience of reading it.
Despite my best efforts, I just could not enter the flow of the book. It felt disjointed. It lacked a captivating central metaphor or clear through line. The book desperately needed some kind of literary device to help orient the reader, an "armature" to hang all the data on. As a consequence (couldn't resist) the book lacked the impact and "stickiness" that it could of had.
Good science popularizations are both highly informative and highly engaging e.g. Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene or Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. Consequences wasn't quite technical enough to be highly informative and it wasn't quite fun or interesting enough to be truly engaging. It may be unfair to compare this book to those. But popular science writing is getting pretty damn good lately, the bar is high and those books (and books like them) are the benchmark.
One thing I absolutely loved about the book was the authors omission of the trade jargon of behaviorism. Leaving out terms like positive punishment and negative reinforcer (terms that confuse almost everyone) was a good move. Also, refraining from initializing the already confusing terms e.g. Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) was also a good move. Every psych student knows the demoralizing frustration of trudging through a textbook treatment of behaviorism and forgetting what UCS means, and having to flip back and forth through the text just to keep it all straight.
That being said. It's a very worth while read and I recommend it. There are scant few other popular titles on the subject (aside from textbooks and source materials such as Skinners work). Plus the book is getting very good (4 and 5 star) reviews from the other readers. So maybe it's just me. Go ahead and read it and find out for your self. Perhaps your experience will be more rewarding than mine.
Despite my best efforts, I just could not enter the flow of the book. It felt disjointed. It lacked a captivating central metaphor or clear through line. The book desperately needed some kind of literary device to help orient the reader, an "armature" to hang all the data on. As a consequence (couldn't resist) the book lacked the impact and "stickiness" that it could of had.
Good science popularizations are both highly informative and highly engaging e.g. Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene or Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. Consequences wasn't quite technical enough to be highly informative and it wasn't quite fun or interesting enough to be truly engaging. It may be unfair to compare this book to those. But popular science writing is getting pretty damn good lately, the bar is high and those books (and books like them) are the benchmark.
One thing I absolutely loved about the book was the authors omission of the trade jargon of behaviorism. Leaving out terms like positive punishment and negative reinforcer (terms that confuse almost everyone) was a good move. Also, refraining from initializing the already confusing terms e.g. Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) was also a good move. Every psych student knows the demoralizing frustration of trudging through a textbook treatment of behaviorism and forgetting what UCS means, and having to flip back and forth through the text just to keep it all straight.
That being said. It's a very worth while read and I recommend it. There are scant few other popular titles on the subject (aside from textbooks and source materials such as Skinners work). Plus the book is getting very good (4 and 5 star) reviews from the other readers. So maybe it's just me. Go ahead and read it and find out for your self. Perhaps your experience will be more rewarding than mine.
October 15, 2013
The span of material that this book covers is truly astounding, and it is for the most part very well researched. It covers genetics, neuroscience, cognitive science, animal training, animal behavior, psychotherapy, superstition,self-help, and behavior modification and places it all within the context of classical and operant conditioning. As the subtitle suggests, this book is about how the consequences (or apparent consequences in the case of the formation of superstitions and some phobias) affect our behavior. The list of references at the end of the book is quite an excellent guide for anyone wanting to do some research and in need of journal articles to read and cite.
The book is highly readable and she avoids any complex terminology (in my opinion, at least). She also has a glossary at the back of the book. So, if you have any teenagers who are considering college careers, I'd get them this book if they enjoy reading because it's definitely something an intelligent high schooler could read. A college student or even a graduate such as myself would enjoy and benefit from this book too.
My other minor complaint is in one section on genetics she cites the book The Dependent Gene by David Moore, which is one of the worst science books I've read due to it's ill informed straw man attacks on genetics. That review can be found here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
In any case, the very same points Schneider makes (or rather, draws on from Moore's book) can also be found in The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene or The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates The Complexities of Human Thought or The Triumph of Sociobiology put in a sociobiological or evolutionary psychology context, so it's clear Schneider's point is to de-emphasize "nature" and put "nature" and "nurture" on more of an equal footing. Nothing wrong with that so long as it's not out of a principled opposition to a particular field of science. As Richard Dawkins, John Alcock, and Gary Marcus say in the books I recommended, of course there are non-genetic factors in pretty much any phenotype or behavior and that development is complex and involves many factors, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to study the genetic component. To emphasize genes in research is not to diminish the role of other factors, just as researching epigenetic and environemntal factors is not to diminish the role of genes.
Anyway, enough of my tangent, just read this book if you like psychology. I'm sure you won't regret it.
The book is highly readable and she avoids any complex terminology (in my opinion, at least). She also has a glossary at the back of the book. So, if you have any teenagers who are considering college careers, I'd get them this book if they enjoy reading because it's definitely something an intelligent high schooler could read. A college student or even a graduate such as myself would enjoy and benefit from this book too.
My other minor complaint is in one section on genetics she cites the book The Dependent Gene by David Moore, which is one of the worst science books I've read due to it's ill informed straw man attacks on genetics. That review can be found here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
In any case, the very same points Schneider makes (or rather, draws on from Moore's book) can also be found in The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene or The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates The Complexities of Human Thought or The Triumph of Sociobiology put in a sociobiological or evolutionary psychology context, so it's clear Schneider's point is to de-emphasize "nature" and put "nature" and "nurture" on more of an equal footing. Nothing wrong with that so long as it's not out of a principled opposition to a particular field of science. As Richard Dawkins, John Alcock, and Gary Marcus say in the books I recommended, of course there are non-genetic factors in pretty much any phenotype or behavior and that development is complex and involves many factors, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to study the genetic component. To emphasize genes in research is not to diminish the role of other factors, just as researching epigenetic and environemntal factors is not to diminish the role of genes.
Anyway, enough of my tangent, just read this book if you like psychology. I'm sure you won't regret it.
November 16, 2019
A great outline of the relationship between consequences and behaviour for humans and animals, with countless examples of how this relationship is/ can be applied. Useful for anyone wanting to shape, change or understand behaviour in humans or animals. A huge number of scientific studies are referred to, which helps explain the evolution of knowledge in these areas.
September 2, 2021
This book was all over the place. I think the author tried to cover way to broad subject matter. It was interesting tidbits, but they did not tie together for an overall cohesive message. I'm honestly not sure of what point the author was trying to convey.
November 7, 2023
This was an entertaining pop science book, but also dated. I often felt like the book was just repeating a bunch of old news with no really novel ideas in it. Also, from my disgruntled position on positive reinforcement, I have a bone to pick with the book, and that is that it states confidently that positive reinforcement training has raised the success rate of guide dogs in training (if they only could see the industry-wide stats now that positive reinforcement has caused the success rate to tank across the world). Also, it admits that positive reinforcement training is not the most effective in every situation, but then glosses over that fact to go on talking about how wonderful it is. This is a well-enough-written book, just not sure I learned anything from it to make up for all those hours listening.
September 14, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed learning about all the topics within this book. This is relevant to an incredibly wide range of people from teachers, animal trainers, zookeepers, parents, therapists, scientists and I think that means that literally everyone should read (or listen as I did) to this book. Incredibly interesting
August 27, 2014
This book is a surprisingly interesting and accessible read! I felt like the author is usually very skillful about they way she introduces topics in a way that is fascinating, as well as useful. I especially love that she does this while being very mindful of making over-generalizations or running away with "what the science says".
My only (very minor) criticism is that she often introduces a topic, and before she properly supports the idea, she says "and the rest is history," and suddenly moves on. However, it does make for a more accessible and flowing read.
I would recommend this book to anyone. For someone well up on their psychology, much of it will be a review of basic topics, but there is such a wealth of interesting references, examples, and studies that I found it to be a bit like Wikipedia, as far as getting a brief description of a topic, but more importantly, finding all the books and studies that are related to the topic. For the layperson, I believe this book could be a very useful read to anyone - some of the topics she tackles (armed with lovely behavioral science!) include weight loss, education, autism, and aggression, to name but a few.
My only (very minor) criticism is that she often introduces a topic, and before she properly supports the idea, she says "and the rest is history," and suddenly moves on. However, it does make for a more accessible and flowing read.
I would recommend this book to anyone. For someone well up on their psychology, much of it will be a review of basic topics, but there is such a wealth of interesting references, examples, and studies that I found it to be a bit like Wikipedia, as far as getting a brief description of a topic, but more importantly, finding all the books and studies that are related to the topic. For the layperson, I believe this book could be a very useful read to anyone - some of the topics she tackles (armed with lovely behavioral science!) include weight loss, education, autism, and aggression, to name but a few.
August 14, 2013
I really wanted to like this book but I just couldn't get into it; I don't know if I'm suffering from non-fiction overload or stress from getting ready to go back to school.
August 21, 2020
Most people think consequences have to be negative. Not true. In behaviour analysis, a consequence is what happens after the behaviour: whether it be good, bad or neutral. Schneider takes you through a journey (an engaging one) from evolution, genes, our brain to the environment. Consilience of consequences - flexibility, really. A reader who knows nothing about the science of behaviour may struggle at times with some of the terms and research discussed. Even though Schneider does a great job at translating difficult concepts into everyday language, there are times where she defaults back to the field's terminology. If you don't mind checking out the glossary of terms at the end of book, you'll enjoy this book. It might also be useful for budding students of behaviour analysis. Or if you sometimes struggle to explain our field's terminology to lay audience. Or if you wanted to debate with someone about how science of consequences (and behaviour) could/is saving the world because they didn't think so. Read it.
July 22, 2025
Susan Schneider has successfully melded the theory of evolution, genetics and neuropsychology. The key idea that interested me was the notion that the selection of behaviours and their consequences is a critical aspect of evolution. Epigenetics and ethology is better informing us on the overlapping and interactive forces that drives evolution. Her title is apt and I will hereinafter include ‘consequences’ in my thinking.
January 19, 2018
While many of the numerous examples cited seem to be intuitive, the author expounds on how we are affected by observable outcomes at every level of our lives. I didn't find a whole lot of surprises but reading this book made me ponder the influence of the consequencs we experience from the roles we play and the daily decisions we make.
August 6, 2017
An excellent and readable presentation of the concept of "consequences" and how behavior-consequence relationships build and alter our behaviors. This is a "must read" for those interested in a behavior-science understanding of the development of human behaviors.
May 1, 2019
Þrjár og hálf
February 22, 2024
An accessible intro to behaviour. Easy to read. Interesting.
November 3, 2019
Upon reading the title of this book, you can be forgiven for asking with a puzzled frown: “Wait…there is a science of consequences?” Well, according to author and biopsychologist Susan M. Schneider, there most certainly is! She backs up her claim by devoting Part 2 of her three-part book explaining the what-and-why of that science.
Consequences appear to belong to that family of phenomena with the characteristic of hiding in plain sight. The sheer ubiquity of consequences in daily life is matched only by the subtlety of their existence. Yet as research on the topic expanded, Schneider tells us, the science of consequences is “becoming an integral part of psychology, biology, medicine, education, economics, and many other fields.”
By definition, a consequence is “an outcome that depends on a behavior.” Schneider offers a simple example: the behavior of turning one’s head to create the consequence of seeing a view out of a window. While Part 1 covers some historical context and big-picture concepts, it is in Part 2 that Schneider peels back the layers of science. Readers will be introduced to: reinforcers that sustain behaviors, and punishers (or negatives) that cause behaviors to decline; classical conditioning and, inevitably, Pavlov’s salivating dogs; why dealing with choice is really dealing with consequences; and the importance of mastering signals to achieve or avoid consequences.
In Part 3, Schneider discusses the applied science of consequences, and how understanding behaviors can help humans make better choices. Related benefits can positively affect everything from parenting to marriage to all social interaction. The greater our understanding, the more significant our ability to shape our destinies.
In The Science of Consequences: How They Affect Genes, Change the Brain, and Impact Our World, Schneider has written a fascinating and entertaining revelation of a sort of best-kept science secret. It is filled with examples on every page, and a lot of the research features behaviors of the animal world—pigeons, rats, and ducks—to illustrate a point.
Schneider rounds out the book nicely with almost 100 pages of chapter notes and bibliography. The accompanying glossary is a practical add-on, but this reviewer wishes it was more extensive, and included such terms as neurogenesis, rules and delays, nature-nurture interaction, and many others. It also occurs to this reviewer that enough popular science books have been written that reference parts of the brain for the clear need for a standard, simple schematic of a parts-labeled brain. Thereafter, the same schematic could simply be slapped into all such books that reference the brain.
Consequences appear to belong to that family of phenomena with the characteristic of hiding in plain sight. The sheer ubiquity of consequences in daily life is matched only by the subtlety of their existence. Yet as research on the topic expanded, Schneider tells us, the science of consequences is “becoming an integral part of psychology, biology, medicine, education, economics, and many other fields.”
By definition, a consequence is “an outcome that depends on a behavior.” Schneider offers a simple example: the behavior of turning one’s head to create the consequence of seeing a view out of a window. While Part 1 covers some historical context and big-picture concepts, it is in Part 2 that Schneider peels back the layers of science. Readers will be introduced to: reinforcers that sustain behaviors, and punishers (or negatives) that cause behaviors to decline; classical conditioning and, inevitably, Pavlov’s salivating dogs; why dealing with choice is really dealing with consequences; and the importance of mastering signals to achieve or avoid consequences.
In Part 3, Schneider discusses the applied science of consequences, and how understanding behaviors can help humans make better choices. Related benefits can positively affect everything from parenting to marriage to all social interaction. The greater our understanding, the more significant our ability to shape our destinies.
In The Science of Consequences: How They Affect Genes, Change the Brain, and Impact Our World, Schneider has written a fascinating and entertaining revelation of a sort of best-kept science secret. It is filled with examples on every page, and a lot of the research features behaviors of the animal world—pigeons, rats, and ducks—to illustrate a point.
Schneider rounds out the book nicely with almost 100 pages of chapter notes and bibliography. The accompanying glossary is a practical add-on, but this reviewer wishes it was more extensive, and included such terms as neurogenesis, rules and delays, nature-nurture interaction, and many others. It also occurs to this reviewer that enough popular science books have been written that reference parts of the brain for the clear need for a standard, simple schematic of a parts-labeled brain. Thereafter, the same schematic could simply be slapped into all such books that reference the brain.
June 28, 2022
266 page book somehow takes me almost 10 years to read. This was a major drag and I didn't find it engaging even though it's an area of deep interest for me and I was familiar with much of the material already. Writing style I guess.
It was like listening to someone with a photographic memory and ADHD tell you about every study they'd read in a day without being able to seamlessly connect them to an overall thesis.
"Consequences" were so broadly defined and then rarely noted what sub-definition fit that it was annoying.
I decided to invent a quest to finish every book I bought but hadn't yet read from 2009-2019 and now I only have one to go!
It was like listening to someone with a photographic memory and ADHD tell you about every study they'd read in a day without being able to seamlessly connect them to an overall thesis.
"Consequences" were so broadly defined and then rarely noted what sub-definition fit that it was annoying.
I decided to invent a quest to finish every book I bought but hadn't yet read from 2009-2019 and now I only have one to go!
December 12, 2012
Great book for the lay population introducing them to our science, its interactions with biology, and hopefully destroying the misunderstandings that plague so much of what we do.
March 24, 2014
Great information, although the reading experience would have flowed better had the prose been a little less dry.
April 25, 2017
Awesome book! Now I know why we procrastinate!
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews