Table of Contents

1. Introduction

PART ONE: Mindlessness

2. When the Lights’ On and Nobody’s Home
Trapped by Categories
Automatic Behavior
Acting from a Single Perspective

3. The Roots of Mindlessness
The Mindless “Expert”
The Sacrilegious Poodle
Mindlessness and the Unconscious
Belief in Limited Resources
Entropy and Linear Time as Limiting Mindsets
Education for Outcome
The Power of Context

4. The Costs of Mindlessness
A Narrow Self-Image
Unintended Cruelty
Loss of Control
Learned Helplessness
Stunted Potential

PART TWO: Mindfulness

5. The Nature of Mindfulness
Creating New Categories
Welcoming New Information
More Than One View
Control Over Context: The Birdman of Alcatraz
Process Before Outcome
Mindfulness East and West

6. Mindful Aging
Control and Survival
Reversing Memory Loss
Outgrowing Mindsets
Stretching the Limits of Age
Growth in Age
Putting Age in Context: An Experiment

7. Creative Uncertainty
Mindfulness and Intuition
Creativity and Conditional Learning
Distinctions and Analogies

8. Mindfulness on the Job
Welcoming the Glitch
Second Wind
Innovation
The Power of Uncertainty for Managers
Burnout and Control

9. Decreasing Prejudice by Increasing Discrimination
A Patient by Any Other Name
The Painted Cast
Mindfully Different
Disabling Mindsets
Discrimination Without Prejudice

10. Minding Matters: Mindfulness and Health
Dualism: A Dangerous Mindset
The Body in Context
Addiction in Context
The Traditional Placebo: Fooling the Mind
The Active Placebo: Enlisting the Mind

Epilogue: Beyond Mindfulness