Health Sociology

Renowned psychologists describe the most useful insights from social psychology that can help make you "wise": wise about why people behave the way they do, and wise about how to use that knowledge in understanding and influencing the people in your life. When faced with a challenge, we often turn to those we trust for words of wisdom. Friends, relatives, and colleagues - someone with the best advice about how to boost sales, the most useful insights into raising children, or the sharpest take on an ongoing conflict.

As much of the world's population grows older, the quest for a "good death" has become a significant issue. For many, the right to die often means the right to die with dignity. The Inevitable moves beyond margins of the law to the people who are meticulously planning their final hours - far from medical offices, legislative chambers, hospital ethics committees, and polite conversation - and the people who help them, loved ones or clandestine groups on the Internet known as the "euthanasia underground".

For thousands of years, religion has woven its way through societies and people as if it were part and parcel to that society or person. In large measure it was left unexplained and unchallenged, it simply existed. Those who attempted to challenge and expose religion were often persecuted, excommunicated, shunned, or even executed. It could be fatal to explain that which the church, priest, or imam said was unexplainable. Before the germ, viral, and parasite theory of disease, physicians had no tools to understand disease and its propagation.

A powerful and inspiring examination of the connection between the potential for great talent and conditions commonly thought to be "disabilities", revealing how the source of our struggles can be the origin of our greatest strengths. In The Power of Different, psychiatrist and best-selling author Gail Saltz examines the latest scientific discoveries and profiles famous geniuses who have been diagnosed with all manner of brain "problems".

Social psychologist and Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business Brian Lowery argues for the radical idea that the “self” as we know it, does not exist. The self—that “voice in your head”—is a social construct, created in our relationships and social interactions. We are unique because our individual pattern of relationships is unique. We change because our relationships change. Your self isn’t just you, it’s all around you.

Nobody affects us as deeply as our brothers and sisters - not parents, not children, not friends. From the time we - and they - are born, our siblings are our collaborators and co-conspirators, our role models and cautionary tales. They teach us how to resolve conflicts and how not to, how to conduct friendships and when to walk away.

The Cancer Whisperer chronicles Sophie's extraordinary relationship with cancer and the very effective methods she has used for dealing with her fear, anger, denial, and grief. The Brené Brown of cancer, Sophie empowers listeners to reject the traditional adversarial relationship with cancer by teaching us how to listen to it; how to be healed by it as well as how to seek to cure it; and how to be emotionally free even when we are physically curtailed.

A fascinating look at the evolution of behavioral science, the revolutionary way it's changing the way we live, and how nurturing environments can increase people's well-being in virtually every aspect of our society, from early childhood education to corporate practices. If you want to know how you can help create a better world, listen to this book.

Claude M. Steele, who has been called “one of the few great social psychologists,” offers a vivid first-person account of the research that supports his groundbreaking conclusions on stereotypes and identity. He sheds new light on American social phenomena from racial and gender gaps in test scores to the belief in the superior athletic prowess of black men, and lays out a plan for mitigating these “stereotype threats” and reshaping American identities.

In the Mayo Clinic book Back and Neck Health, acclaimed neurosurgeon Mohamad Bydon, MD, evaluates the primary back and neck conditions plaguing working adults today and identifies everyday actions that may exacerbate the pain. The book also outlines the variety of treatment options available to those living with chronic back and neck pain, including home treatments, physical therapy, interventional approaches, and different types of surgery.

In this groundbreaking collection, Ruth DyckFehderau and 27 storytellers offer a rich and timely accounting of contemporary life in Eeyou Istchee, the territory of the James Bay Cree of Northern Quebec. The stories are connected by diabetes, but they are not records of illness as much as they are deeply personal accounts of life in the North.

Americans are a "positive" people—cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity. In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal nineteenth-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude.

The national best seller that defines a new economic class and shows how it is key to the future of our cities. The Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today - and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.

In the 21st century, a developmental phase of life is emerging as significant and distinct, capturing our interest, engaging our curiosity, and expanding our understanding of human potential and development. Demographers talk about this new chapter in life as characterized by people - those between ages 50 and 75 - who are considered "neither young nor old." In our "third chapters" we are beginning to redefine our views about the casualties and opportunities of aging.

The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before.

This extraordinary book presents scenarios of one family's therapy experience and explains what underlies each encounter. You will discover the general patterns that are common to all families - stress, polarization and escalation, scapegoating, triangulation, blaming, and the diffusion of identity - and you will gain a vivid understanding of the intriguing field of family therapy.

In Dead Weight, Emmeline Clein recounts her struggle with disordered eating alongside the stories of other women: historical figures, pop culture celebrities, and the girls she’s known and loved. Through the story of her own sickness, the raw recollections of interview subjects, and dispatches from social media rabbit holes, Clein challenges stereotypes and renders statistics and science deeply personal and urgent.

Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental, diverging force in our development. According to this familiar story, differences between the sexes are shaped by past evolutionary pressures - women are more cautious and parenting-focused, men seek status to attract more mates - re-created in each generation by sex hormones and male and female brains. This, in turn, is the basis of supposedly entrenched inequalities in our modern societies.

This health assessment book for nursing students helps relieve that pressure and anxiety by providing a no fluff, easy-to-understand, full-of-pictures physical assessment that you can easily learn.