Daniel Gilbert Immune To Reality Summary

In “Immune to Reality”, Daniel Gilbert analyzes human nature in the face of adversity. He focuses on the human ability most people display of maintaining emotional stability after emotional trauma. He calls this ability “the psychological immune system”, which is a method of fabricating a positive point of view on something that would normally be devastating by unconsciously devising strategies and “cooking” facts to help us cope with and accept it. To support this notion of a “psychological immune system”, Gilbert discusses experiments that prove people have a psychological tendency to develop explanations and positive perspectives on otherwise traumatic events, allowing them to defend themselves from (or become “immune” to) the world around …show more content…
This social dynamic is dubbed the “fourth-class system” by the students and faculty of the Citadel. Faludi describes the system as a “nine-month regimen...intended to ‘strip’ each young recruit of his original identity and remold him into the ‘Whole Man’” (Faludi, 75). This stripping and remolding is not as constructive as it seems in the Citadel. The underclassmen, referred to as “knobs”, were not allowed to “fraternize” with upperclassmen (Faludi, 81). Not only did the “knobs” face ostracism and social degradation, they faced serious physical abuse on top of their social victimization. “Knobs” were beaten day and night and lived in fear that an upperclassman would drunkenly barge into their room at night and physically abuse them (Faludi, 85). How the boys responded to such abuse can be explained by Gilbert’s notion of the “psychological immune system” and its “intensity trigger”. Gilbert defines the “intensity trigger” as a principle by which the “psychological immune system” is activated. It is based upon the notion that “it is sometimes more difficult to achieve a positive view of a bad experience than of a very bad experience” (Gilbert, 136). This means that the boys suffering such severe victimization and trauma had their “psychological immune systems” activated in order to adapt to their newfound socially oppressed position, to mentally escape from the position of victim and see positivity in their

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