Use it or lose it? Some activities may increase general intelligence (Image: Erich Lessing/Magnum)

Mind-reading, prediction and intelligence – these three books promise three superpowers. But do they make Kate Douglas a better person?

SELF help. Now try to keep an open mind. This is the world’s bestselling genre, with around 45,000 titles in print. What’s more, it has intellectual credibility. Today’s cutting-edge titles are written by respected scientists and journalists, and include a sophisticated blend of neuroscience, psychology and philosophy.

It’s only human to want to better oneself, if just to outsmart the competition. So we should applaud the trend to bring the latest insights from the human sciences to a wider audience. But, having read a fair few of these titles, I can’t help noticing a distinct lack of personal growth. Sure, I know more about my brain, mind and behaviour, but am I a better person?


Nobody could doubt the credentials of my three recent guides. Nicholas Epley is a behavioural scientist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and apparently a “professor to watch”. If you want to know what other people really think about you, he’s your man, and in Mindwise he aims to improve your capacity for reading the minds of others. Then there’s Matthew Hertenstein, a psychologist at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, who researches non-verbal behavioural cues. He promises to reveal all in The Tell. Finally, “award-winning science journalist” Dan Hurley justifies this accolade in Smarter, his exploration of the “new science of building brain power”.

Mind-reading, prediction and intelligence; three books, three superpowers. How exciting! As I crack open my copies and rummage around in the blurbs, my inner cynic is overwhelmed by the promise of a new and better me.

Mind-reading, prediction and intelligence – three books, three superpowers. How exciting!

First up, Mindwise. Epley begins by lauding the amazing human capacity to intuit what others are thinking. But pretty soon he is detailing its failings: we are overconfident in our mind-reading abilities; we use our own mind as a template for others, yet confabulate wildly to make sense of ourselves; by stereotyping people we overemphasise differences; we are woefully poor at reading body language; and we constantly misapply our mind-reading talents, dehumanising others while imbuing inanimate objects with human traits.

It’s compelling stuff. But as I read on, it becomes apparent that Mindwise isn’t in fact about me. Despite Epley’s convictions to the contrary, I will complete this book review on time, and I already know that I shouldn’t worry too much about what other people think of me, because they seldom do. At best, his protagonist is the average person, at worst, the American undergraduate who is the subject of most psychological research. That’s not me. And while it is useful to understand the limitations of my mind-reading ability, what I really want to know is how to overcome them. In the last chapter, we finally get there: the best way to find out what someone else is thinking is… to ask them.

Disappointed, I move on to The Tell. Hertenstein promises to reveal my skill for making “reliably good predictions across many spheres of life”. This sounds more promising. But a “tell” turns out to be just a hyped-up non-verbal cue, and much of the research is familiar. The real problem, however, lies in presenting this as news I can use – to spot a liar or a lover, for instance, or to predict whether someone is nice or will make a good leader. The trouble is that social science reveals general patterns, whereas I deal with individuals, and my judgements of them have consequences. Admittedly, Hertenstein advocates caution in using non-verbal cues, but then what good are they to me? Epley’s prescription – just talk to people – is starting to look quite wise.

While I could consider the implications of Hertenstein’s research for myself, I would much rather a fellow journalist and self-professed “skeptical bastard” does it for me. At the core of Hurley’s Smarter is a dispute over whether intelligence can be increased. Hurley speaks to the main players, weighs up the evidence, and picks seven activities or treatments that promise the most. These include two types of short-term memory training, physical exercise, mindfulness meditation, learning a musical instrument, wearing a nicotine patch and a form of electrical stimulation of the brain. Then he puts them to the test.

His journey is very entertaining. Who will win the battle of minds? Will Hurley overcome the tribulations of the 6 am boot camp, the fiendishly difficult “N-back” cognitive test and the intricate fingering required to play the Renaissance lute, and reach the holy grail of increased intelligence? It is also thought-provoking, raising questions about what intelligence is, how it changes as we grow older, and whether we should try to improve it if we can.

I won’t steal Hurley’s thunder by revealing whether his personal experiment worked. Either way, remember, he is just one data point. And so is each of us. Which is why, if I want to be a better person, it’s going to take more than a few self help books, no matter how statistically significant their content.

Mindwise: How we understand what others think, believe, feel and want Nicholas Epley Allen Lane

The Tell: The little clues that reveal big truths about who we are Matthew Hertenstein Basic Books

Smarter: The new science of building brain power Dan Hurley Viking

This article appeared in print under the headline “The best I can be”