Showing titles in Social Psychology & Interactions

While the best way to deal with a sociopath is to avoid him or her entirely, sometimes circumstance doesn't allow for that. What happens when the time comes to defend yourself against your own child, a ruthless ex-spouse, a boss, or another person in power? Using the many emails and letters she has received over the years, Dr. Martha Stout uncovers the psychology behind the sociopath’s methods and provides concrete guidelines to help navigate these dangerous interactions.

From intimate relationships to global politics, Sarah Schulman observes a continuum: that inflated accusations of harm are used to avoid accountability. Illuminating the difference between conflict and abuse, Schulman directly addresses our contemporary culture of scapegoating. This deep, brave, and bold work reveals how punishment replaces personal and collective self-criticism, and shows why difference is so often used to justify cruelty and shunning.

In Rapt, acclaimed behavioral science writer Winifred Gallagher makes the argument that the quality of your life largely depends on what you choose to pay attention to and how you choose to do it. Gallagher grapples with provocative questions - Can we train our focus? What's different about the way creative people pay attention? Why do we often zero in on the wrong factors when making big decisions? - driving us to reconsider what we think we know about attention.

Integrating hundreds of studies with her own research and work in the Fortune 500 world, organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich shatters conventional assumptions about what it takes to truly know ourselves - like why introspection isn't a bullet train to insight, how experience is the enemy of self-knowledge, and just how far others will go to avoid telling us the truth about ourselves. At a time when self-awareness matters more than ever, Insight is the essential playbook for surviving and thriving in an unaware world.

Video game sales as a whole have continued to grow, now raking in twice as much money per year as the entire film industry, and countless psychologists have turned their attention to the effects gaming has on us: our confidence, our identity, and our personal growth. The Psychology of Zelda applies the latest psychological findings, plus insights from classic psychology theory, to Link, Zelda, Hyrule, and the players who choose to wield the Master Sword.

lf a man cannot stand freedom, he will probably turn fascist. This, in the fewest possible words, is the essential argument in this modem classic, Escape from Freedom. The author, Erich Fromm, is a distinguished psychologist, late of Berlin and Heidelberg, now of New York City.

Virus of the Mind is the first popular work devoted to the science of memetics, a controversial new field that transcends psychology, biology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Memetics is the science of memes, the invisible but very real DNA of human society. Here, the author carefully builds on the work of scientists Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, and others who have become fascinated with memes and their potential impact on our lives.

As our society becomes more socially fragmented, many Christians feel disconnected and struggle to grow spiritually. Common models of spiritual transformation are proving inadequate to address "the sanctification gap." In recent decades, however, a new paradigm of human and spiritual development has been emerging from multiple fields. It's supported by a critical mass of evidence, all pointing to what

What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats, and wrenching dilemmas. A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or 10? They adopt 20.

Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz reveals in fascinating detail how big data offers insights into the most intimate aspects of our psyches and how these insights empower an external influence over the choices we make. This can be creepy, manipulative, and downright harmful, with scandals like that of British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica being merely the tip of the iceberg. Yet big data also holds enormous potential to help us live healthier, happier lives.

First published in 2006, this updated edition describes new findings on the origins of DDD, the brain science supporting the diagnosis, and cutting-edge treatment approaches. DDD is examined from medical and psychiatric perspectives, but as the authors reveal, it also emerges in literary, philosophical, and spiritual investigations. Feeling Unreal thoroughly explores these different aspects in a fascinating and essential resource that is accessible to medical professionals and general listeners alike.

In For the Culture, Marcus Collins argues that true cultural engagement is the most powerful vehicle for influencing behavior. If you want to get people to move, you must first understand the underlying cultural forces that make them tick. Collins uses stories from his own work as an award-winning marketer—from spearheading digital strategy for Beyoncé, to working on Apple and Nike collaborations, to the successful launch of the Brooklyn Nets NBA team—to break down the ways in which culture influences behavior and how listeners can do the same

Por que continuamos com dor de cabeça depois de tomar um remédio barato, mas a dor vai embora com uma medicação cara? Por que ostentamos em refeições luxuosas, mas queremos economizar vinte centavos em uma lata de ervilha? Sempre acreditamos que nossas escolhas são inteligentes e racionais, mas Dan Ariely joga por terra essas crenças com revelações surpreendentes que mudam a forma como entendemos o comportamento humano.

Not Born Yesterday explains how we decide who we can trust and what we should believe - and argues that we're pretty good at making these decisions. In this lively and provocative book, Hugo Mercier demonstrates how virtually all attempts at mass persuasion - whether by religious leaders, politicians, or advertisers - fail miserably.

When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World is a landmark work of social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter which was published in 1956. The book examines the case of a UFO cult in Chicago called the Seekers, their expectation of an imminent apocalypse, and their coping mechanisms after the event did not occur.

This book uses evolutionary psychology as a lens to explain religious violence and oppression. The author, a clinical psychologist, examines religious scriptures, rituals, and canon law, highlighting the many ways in which our evolutionary legacy has shaped the development of religion and continues to profoundly influence its expression.

From the author of The Pimp Game: Instructional Guide comes book two, with advanced lessons in psychological mastery. It dissects techniques of the secret societies, which explain how few minds control so many. What makes one submit to the will of another?

Social interactions and the impressions that drive them are vitally important aspects of human behavior. In this compelling course, learn about how we shape the impressions other people form of us - at work, at home, in our social lives, and in the world at large.

We've all seen the happiness on the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless, all-consuming, and fun. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. We are designed by nature to flourish through play.

Several years ago, Sam Walker set out to answer one of the most hotly debated questions in sports: What are the greatest teams of all time? He devised a formula, then applied it to thousands of teams from leagues all over the world, from the NBA to the English Premier League to Olympic field hockey. When he was done, he had a list of the 16 most dominant teams in history. At that point he became obsessed with another, more complicated question: What did these freak teams have in common?