Aired 01/29/12

Though change has never been as rapid as it is today, adapting to new circumstance is so crucial to our survival that “love of the new” is hardwired into our brains at the deepest levels. The number of new things we confront – from products to information – has quadrupled in the last thirty years with no signs of slowing.
In NEW: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change, WINIFRED GALLAGHER points out that 15% of us are “neophiliacs,” biologically predisposed to passionately pursue new experiences. Another 15% are “neophobes” who resist change. Most of us fall in the middle.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER has written for magazines from The Atlantic Monthly to Rolling Stone. Her books include Just the Way You Are: How Heredity and Experience Create the Individual, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions; and Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life.