books in brief

The book is a guide to critical thinking about psychology . It discusses a number of most widespread and believed myths of popular psychology — a type of psychology that is not ...

Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of “normal” as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressur...

Have you ever wondered why western culture is so individualistic and why eastern culture in sharp contrast is so collectivist? I have and never got a compelling answer till I read ...

The books I read in 2024 along with my rating on a scale of zero (sucks) to 10 (best).

In Quick Fix, Jesse Singal discusses different psychological ideas that have been promoted as quick fixes for different social problems. He refers to these as “half-baked” ideas—id...

Pankaj Mishra tries to answer a question as he travels through poverty-ridden South Asia to gilded Europe and America.

This exploration examines how the human brain shapes identity and consciousness, revealing the connections between thoughts, emotions, and memories while inviting reflection on the...

Dan Ariely’s Misbelief examines how stress, cognitive biases, personality traits, and social forces drive misinformation. Addressing misbelief demands empathy, early intervention, ...

Like all extrinsic motivators, goals narrow our focus. That's one reason they can be effective; they concentrate the mind. But a narrowed focus exacts a cost. For complex or concep...

There are both Diminishers and Illuminators in society. This book helps people learn how to be an Illuminator. Brooks quotes the biographer of E.M. Forster, who claimed, “To speak ...

Learning about how to set boundaries can be difficult work for those who didn’t learn boundary setting as a child. Learning to communicate your desires and to not take ownership of...

Caring personally is about finding time for real conversations; about getting to know each other at a human level; about learning what’s important to people; about sharing with one...

Power is just a tool. It is neutral, with no moral definition. When you confuse how you feel about the use of power with power itself, you do yourself a disservice. You allow other...

The shift from hunting-gathering to farming began 11,000 years ago; the first metal tools were produced only about 7,000 years ago; and the first state government and the first wri...

Greater macroeconomic stability has not made the world economy more stable. Low inflation has not made the world more stable and brutal anti-inflationary policies can easily do mor...

Our system of judging people according to their deviation from the mean (faster, slower, stronger, weaker) is smothering our talents. The sweeping generalizations of averagarians c...

All failed states have one thing in common and that the rule is by an elite whose focus is on maintaining and/or expanding their own interests at the expense of the rest of the pop...

India exhibits a prevalent mindset rooted in hierarchy. This hierarchical structure extends beyond distinctions in job titles; it permeates across various domains, including caste,...

Many people feel that when they are overwhelmed or lose focus, they need to retreat into themselves and shut out the world. That doesn’t work for me. I find myself, and activate my...

Evolutionary psychology is the scientific study of the mind as a product of evolution. It seeks to understand how the human mind has been shaped by natural and sexual selection ove...

When it comes to competition of any kind, people tend to fall into one of two categories: those who need to avoid stress to do well, and those who actually need stress to perform t...

Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions enc...

In trying to judge moral dilemmas people often resort to one of these four: downsize the issue, focus on a touching human story, weave conspiracy theories or create a dogma and put...

Flexitarians appear to cut their rate of diabetes by 28 percent, good news for those who eat meat maybe once a week rather than every day. Those who cut out all meat except fish ap...

The huge rise in children being diagnosed with attention problems has coincided with several big changes in the way children live. Kids are now allowed to run around far less. Chil...

Desire does not mean the drive for food or sex or shelter or security. Those things are better called needs—they’re hardwired into our bodies. Biological needs don’t rely on imitat...

Societal change is needed to counter the rise of perfectionism. Ultimately, it will require policy changes and huge collective action, such as stricter regulations for advertising ...

The right to be the final judge of yourself is the prime assertive right which allows no one to manipulate you. It is the assertive right from which your other assertive rights are...

Of the many lessons, this time we heard that If dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough, that bettering yourself every day is not negotiable for someone wanting to live life...

Making things easier isn’t necessarily the path to a psychological moonshot, sometimes you have to do the opposite e.g. Red Bull delivers on its psychological expectation of enhanc...

We observed that nurses confronted “process failure” often. Their responses fell into two categories. What we called “first order problem solving” was a work around to complete the...

Assume the burden of making everyone else feel happy and comfortable. There is a certain tragedy of the commons in conversation: people often assume that someone else will handle m...

When facing an overwhelming task, like a hefty debt, break it down into smaller, manageable payments. It’s a more approachable strategy and easier on your current self, while still...

The next step is reflective individualism. The person again turns inward, finding new grounds for authority and value within the self. He is no longer blindly conforming, but devel...

Most of us were “socialized” by well-meaning teachers, coaches, and other authority figures who encouraged us to find our place in the world and comfortably fit in rather than buil...

We are addicted to the problems and conditions of our lives that produce stress. No matter whether we’re in a bad job or a bad relationship, we hold our troubles close to us becaus...

That’s the risk that comes with the empathy of feeling. We can feel too much. We can reduce that risk a well-intended come and go strategy. By all means share the other persons fee...

Every time you choose you might think that it is over, that you’ve chosen and that it will either be good or bad. But once we’ve made a choice, we must make other choices afterward...

Despite what countless other books will tell you, positivity and optimism come with plenty of pitfalls – not least that they can make you overconfident, blinkered and gullible.