Review: How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like

How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like by Paul Bloom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fascinating and quick read about the mysterious and at times contradictory ways we get pleasure, and to a large extent feel aversion.

There are a lot of enlightening historical tidbits here I didn't know, like a simple chemical test to identify super-tasters along with a lot studies backing up facts about how we place value on ownership and contact around a basic theory of essentialism.

Back when I was at GM, it was remarked prices changed, but you could always get extra work or effect a thank you with a box of donuts. Similarly, doing studies they find they cannot get affluent MIT students to participate in a study for $2, but a candy bar less than two bucks will work. These are some of the human idiosyncrasies studied.

Coming away from the book, I was most impressed with the scientific study of this essentialism: why mothers only want the bronzed booties of their children, why idols' clothing fetches a higher price without dry cleaning and why children that believe you can duplicate a silver cup don't want your duplicator near their wubby. While the authors don't overtly state this, they have found a basis for belief in the supernatural and a tendency for reverence that both develop at an early age in the human mind.

There is a lot of overlap and synchronicity with You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself and The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us.

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