“The Winner Effect: The Neuroscience of Success and Failure” by Ian H. Robertson is a fascinating book that explores how winning affects our behaviour, pushing us to achieve success. In the book, Robertson often mentions his research and other studies to explain how success and failure can alter our brain chemistry, making us more confident and focused in future challenges. He also shows how these changes can have consequences for ourselves and others, depending on how we handle them.
The book can be divided into three parts: The biology of winning, The psychology of winning, and The politics of winning. In the first part, Robertson explains the background and the science behind the “winner effect”, a term used in biology to describe how an animal that has won a few fights against weak opponents is much more likely to defeat stronger contenders later. This part of the book shows how this phenomenon affects humans and their desire to win. What is really interesting is Robertson’s explanation of how winning can increase the levels of dopamine and testosterone, which enhance motivation, learning, and dominance. He also shows how losing can decrease these levels, leading to unwanted mental stress and issues such as depression, anxiety, and submissiveness. It is an eye-opener to discovering the underlying reasons of psychological issues that people may face.
In the second part, Robertson explores the psychological effects of winning and losing, such as how they can have a powerful influence on our self-esteem, self-control, emotions, and social relationships. He discusses how winning can boost our confidence and creativity, but also make us overconfident and arrogant. We have to be careful with understanding our achievements as losing can also undermine our self-worth and performance, but also make us humbler and more resilient. The author gives us examples of how we can use various strategies to cope with success and failure, such as setting realistic goals, seeking feedback, learning from mistakes, and celebrating achievements.
In the third part, Robertson looks into the political and social implications of winning and losing, such as how they influence leadership, power, corruption, and violence. The idea is that leaders can use the winner effect to inspire and motivate their followers, but they also can abuse it to manipulate and oppress them. On the other hand, followers can use the winner effect to support and cooperate with their leaders, but also resist and rebel against them. Then, he gives some examples of exactly this happening to influence the outcomes of wars, revolutions, elections, or sports.
If you are interested in behavioural economics, the book can still be extremely useful, as it helps understand how the winner effect affects the decisions and actions of individuals and institutions in the economic sphere. For example, the winner effect can affect the motivation and willingness to take risks of entrepreneurs, managers, traders, and consumers, depending on whether they have experienced success or failure in the past. There is also a slight tendency for the winner effect to also affect the performance and productivity of workers, teams, and organisations, depending on whether they have a winning or losing culture. Furthermore, we can also use behavioural economics to understand and modify the winner effect so it marches different contexts and situations. For example, with our knowledge of nudges and incentives, we can manipulate the environment to enhance or reduce the winner effect! We can also provide suggestions on how to use the winner effect to achieve desirable outcomes and avoid undesirable ones, such as by using framing and social norms.
What I particularly took from the book is the process through which you can direct your future. Knowing the winner effect, you can consciously choose your fights and realise how they help your growth. Through minor wins, you can ultimately achieve great things, and this thought has been a major motivator for me since I finished the book. That is why I urge you. Take part in initiatives, and try out in competitions, as your success in those seemingly unimportant projects may have an enormous impact on your behaviour.
In conclusion, The Winner Effect is a captivating and informative book that reveals the hidden power of winning and losing in our lives. The book is written in an engaging and accessible style, with plenty of anecdotes, experiments, and case studies to illustrate the main points. The book is also relevant and timely, as it addresses some of the current issues and challenges facing our society, such as the rise of populism, the polarisation of politics, the inequality of wealth, and the impact of social media. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the science and psychology of success and failure and how to use them to their advantage.
Sources:
Robertson, I.H. (2013) The Winner Effect: The Neuroscience of Success and Failure, 1st edn., London, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Witynski, M., Behavioral economics, explained [Online], Available at: https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/what-is-behavioral-economics
Dugatin and Reeve (2014) ‘Winning, losing, and reaching out’, Behavioral Ecology, 25(4), p.675-679
https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/25/4/675/2900548
Fuxjager and Marler (2009) ‘How and why the winner effect forms: influences of contest environment and species differences’, Behavioral Ecology, 21(1), p.37-45
https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/21/1/37/179860
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