Human Psychology

Love - in both the abstract and the up-close-and-personal - has always provided limitless inspiration for artists, writers, and musicians, but scientists are just as fascinated by these affairs of the heart, though they seldom sing about it. In Love, Sex, and Science, our editors take a step back, analyzing romance using tools like fMRI studies instead of a paint brush or guitar. The writers examine a variety of topics, starting with the perceived sex differences between men and women discussed in Section 1 - are we really as different as Mars and Venus?

What if you weren't sexually attracted to anyone? A growing number of people are identifying as asexual. They aren't sexually attracted to anyone, and they consider it a sexual orientation - like gay, straight, or bisexual. Asexuality is the invisible orientation. Most people believe that "everyone" wants sex, that "everyone" understands what it means to be attracted to other people, and that "everyone" wants to date and mate. But that's where asexual people are left out - they don't find other people sexually attractive, and if and when they say so, they are very rarely treated as though that's okay.

"What is wrong with men today?" That is the question the 27 million single, separated, and divorced women in this country ask themselves again and again. Married women sometimes wonder too. This is the book they’ve all been waiting for. The Love Crisis is a field guide to the contemporary male. Women define the Love Crisis through complaints about skittish men who play destructive games with them or who are unable to make commitments.

In 1997, David Deida released what would become one of the most widely read books on men’s spirituality ever published—The Way of the Superior Man. In this unabridged audiobook of the 20th-anniversary edition, Deida presents a new preface to the now-classic text on how to live a life of masculine freedom, integrity, and authenticity.

Moms can feel as if they are sprinting through life, crashing onto the pillow at day's end only to start again the next morning. In Breathe, Mama, Breathe, psychotherapist Shonda Moralis outlines the benefits of daily meditation and shows moms how to do it - in just five minutes.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. Every day more than 15 million people earn their keep by persuading someone else to make a purchase. But dig deeper and a startling truth emerges: Yes, one in nine Americans works in sales. But so do the other eight. Whether we’re employees pitching colleagues on a new idea, entrepreneurs enticing funders to invest, or parents and teachers cajoling children to study, we spend our days trying to move others.

The Psychology of Human Sexuality is a comprehensive guide to major theoretical perspectives on human sexuality and the vast diversity of sexual attitudes around the world, with topics including anatomy, gender and sexual orientation, sexual behaviors, sexual difficulties and solutions, sex work, and pornography. Written from a sex-positive perspective with material that is inclusive and respectful of a diverse audience, the text includes cutting edge research on the origins of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as new treatments for sexually transmitted infections and diseases.

How did human minds become so different from those of other animals? What accounts for our capacity to understand the way the physical world works, to think ourselves into the minds of others, to gossip, read, tell stories about the past, and imagine the future? These questions are not new: they have been debated by philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, evolutionists, and neurobiologists over the course of centuries. One explanation widely accepted today is that humans have special cognitive instincts.

Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body - how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Bryson-esque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. As Bill Bryson writes, "We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted."

Nationally renowned body language expert Tonya Reiman turns her attention to romance - explaining how to read the signals of your date, your mate, or that cutie across the bar - and never get rejected again! Attraction: It’s biological. It’s physical. It’s chemical. It’s mental. But it doesn’t end there. It’s also: Detectable. Manageable. Maneuverable.

For much of the 20th and 21st centuries, women’s sexuality was an uncharted territory in science, studied far less frequently - and far less seriously - than its male counterpart. That is, until Emily Nagoski’s Come As You Are, which used groundbreaking science and research to prove that the most important factor in creating and sustaining a sex life filled with confidence and joy is not what the parts are or how they’re organized but how you feel about them.

In Raising Human Beings, the renowned child psychologist and New York Times best-selling author of Lost at School and The Explosive Child explains how to cultivate a better parent-child relationship while also nurturing empathy, honesty, resilience, and independence.

Autism therapy typically focuses on ridding individuals of “autistic” symptoms such as difficulties interacting socially, problems in communicating, sensory challenges, and repetitive behavior patterns. Now Dr. Barry M. Prizant offers a new and compelling paradigm: The most successful approaches to autism don’t aim at fixing a person by eliminating symptoms, but rather seeking to understand the individual’s experience and what underlies the behavior. Rather than curb these behaviors, it’s better to enhance abilities, build on strengths, and offer supports.

Sexual issues are incredibly common - yet very poorly understood. Women complain of low desire. Men lose their erections. Or they prefer to stay at home and masturbate to their favorite porn. Couples quietly suffer in sexless marriages for innumerable years. They only talk in hushed voices about their humdrum, tedious sexual routines. People who are deeply in love and attracted to each other are baffled as to why their sex lives aren’t thriving. Sex therapists, doctors, and other experts each present their own separate solutions to these issues.

Sex. It’s something that’s on everyone’s mind. But the minds that thought of the weird, strange, and stupid sex acts that are reported in Fifty Shades of Dumb: True Stories of Strange and Screwy Sex are a breed of their own - and unfortunately some of them try to breed on their own.

Remember that time you screwed up simple math or forgot the name of your favorite song? What if someone told you that such embarrassing "brain farts" are actually secret weapons, proof of your superiority to computers and AI? In Scatterbrain, we learn that boredom awakens the muse, distractions spark creativity, and misjudging time creates valuable memories, among other benefits of our faulty minds. Throughout, award-winning neuroscientist Henning Beck's hilarious asides and brain-boosting advice make for a delightful account of the most cutting-edge neuroscience.

After getting a master’s degree in clinical psychology, Dasha Kiper became the live-in caregiver for a Holocaust survivor with Alzheimer’s disease. For a year, she endured the emotional strain of looking after a person whose condition disrupts the rules of time, order, and continuity. Inspired by her own experience and her work counseling caregivers in the subsequent decade, Kiper offers an entirely new way to understand the symbiotic relationship between patients and those tending to them.

Customers everywhere describe their interactions with companies in a deeply personal way: We hate our banks, love our smartphones, and think the cable company is out to get us. What is actually going through our brains when we make these judgments? Customer loyalty expert Chris Malone and top social psychologist Susan Fiske have discovered that our perceptions arise from spontaneous judgments on warmth and competence, the same two factors that also determine our impressions of people.

The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose research overturns the long-standing belief that emotions are automatic, universal, and hardwired in different brain regions. Instead, Barrett shows, we construct each instance of emotion through a unique interplay of brain, body, and culture.

In Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances - a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.