Highly reviewed psychology books

The book, from the prism of contemporary evolutionary psychology, explores human cognition and behavior. Evolutionary Psychology offers the theoretical methods of evolutionary psychology to students and applies them to human mind experimental studies. Students develop a profound understanding by applying evolutionary theory to their own lives and to other entities with whom they communicate.

The Social Animal is an acclaimed book that has been used for over 50 years in behavioral science lectures and a strong guide to the discipline to many students in the U.S. and around the world. This latest edition preserves the strong descriptive voice of Elliot Aronson, while incorporating the intellectual perspective of his brother, professor at the New York University, Joshua Aronson, his new co-author. The Social Animal, Twelfth Edition, has been extensively revised and updated to give additional perspectives into human social activity around a range of core subjects, including violence, loyalty, compliance, economics, race relations, marketing, peace, and emotional desire

Growing up in California’s desert, Jim Doty was poor, with an drunk father and a depressed mother. He met Ruth in a Magic Shop, a woman who taught him a series of techniques to relieve his own pain and express his deepest desires. Her main goal was to keep his heart open and show other people these methods. She offered him his first glipse into the special brain-heart connection. Part history, part theory, part motivation, and part pragmatic advice, Into the Magic Shop teaches us that by first transforming our minds and hearts we can radically change our lives.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyis well-known studies of optimum perception have shown that a state of consciousness called “flow” is what makes an experience genuinely satisfying. People usually feel intense happiness, imagination, and full dedication to life during such a “flow”. Csikszentmihalyi shows that this positive state can be managed, not just left to chance, in this latest version of his pioneering classic work. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience explains that we can find real satisfaction and dramatically enhance the quality of our lives by organizing the knowledge that reaches our consciousness.

Is progress really at fault in our world, are we doomed ? Social psychologist and public intellectual Steven Pinker encourages us to step away from the gory headlines and prophecies of destruction that reflect our emotional prejudice. Pinker reveals in seventy-five jaw-dropping charts that life, education, wealth, security, harmony, awareness, and satisfaction are growing, all around the world. This advancement was not the result of any divine energy. This is a legacy of the Enlightenment: the idea that science and knowledge in general had improved human wellbeing. The Enlightenment dream is struggling against the tides of authoritarianism, demonization, irrational thinking, all used by demagogues to manipulate the opinion. The consequence is a corrosive fatalism and a desire to destroy democracy and international cooperation. Enlightenment Now makes the case for logic, science, and humanism; values we need to pursue our global progress.

A modern theory of how the brain produces emotions that can revolutionize neuroscience, health care, the justice system, and our human mind comprehension. Today the science of emotion is in the middle of a revolution on par with the discovery of biology of relativity in physics and natural selection, and this paradigm shift has far-reaching consequences for all of humanity. Psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett is leadingthis revolution, whose philosophy of feeling enables a deeper view of mind and brain and shines new light on what it means to be alive. Her research overturns the common assumption that thoughts are located in separate areas of the brain and are universally realized and recognized. Alternatively, she has demonstrated that empathy is developed spontaneously, by core mechanisms that communicate in the entire brain. The new idea suggests you’re playing a much larger role than you ever felt in your emotional life. How Emotions Are Made addresses these and even more questions, showing the newest findings and fascinating functional implications of the modern science of emotion and mind.

The digital revolution drowns us in an unparalleled deluge of information and data. On a everyday basis more choices and judments are expected to be taken than ever before. Yet some people get very good at handling this flow of data. Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the recent brain research in The Organized Mind to demonstrate how these people succeed and how you could use their strategies to get a sense of control over time and never stopping solicitations. Levitin shows that modern insights into the behavioral psychology of attention and memory can be extended to our everyday lives with informative, engaging chapters on everything from kitchen junk drawer to health care to executive office workflow. The Organized Mind reveals how to tackle the churning stream of knowledge in the twenty-first century.

Influence, the seminal book on persuasion, discusses why people say yes and how such understandings can be implemented. The leading specialist in the exponentially developing field of influence and persuasion is Dr. Robert Cialdini. In this acclaimed book you’ll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a expert persuader and how to defend yourself against them. Ideal for individuals from all social classes, Influence principles will drive you to meaningful positive transformation and serve as a driving force for your success.

We believe we make good, moral choices when it comes to making decisions in our lives. Dan Ariely refutes the common belief that we are behaving in inherently rationnal ways in this recently updated and extended version of the New York Times bestseller.

The Willpower Instinct was the first book to describe the emerging psychology of self-control and how it can be harnessed to improve our health, wellbeing, and efficiency, based on Stanford University psychologist Kelly McGonigals. The Willpower Instinct, which is guided by the new findings and incorporates cutting-edge concepts from psychology, sociology, neuroscience and medicine, discusses precisely what willpower is, how it functions, and how it matters. The Willpower Instinct incorporates life-changing prescriptive guidance with practical workouts in the ground-breaking tradition of Getting Things Done to empower writers achieve resolutions ranging from weight loss to more compassionate discipline, less procrastination, better fitness, and greater job efficiency.