This book is a theoretical study of many interconnected facets of the social unconscious and the social "part" of the personality. It takes us from what we thought we knew, and knew we thought, to the un-thought and the unknown, which is, indeed, both disturbing and creative.
Recent Western thought has consistently emphasized the individualistic strand in our understanding of persons at the expense of the social strand. Thus, it is generally thought that persons are self-determining and autonomous, where these are understood to be capacities we exercise most fully on our own, apart from others, whose influence on us tends to undermine that autonomy. Love, Friendship, and the Self argues that we must reject a strongly individualistic conception of persons if we are to make sense of significant interpersonal relationships and the importance they can have in our lives. It presents a new account of love as intimate identification and of friendship as a kind of plural agency, in each case grounding and analyzing these notions in terms of interpersonal emotions. At the center of this account is an analysis of how our emotional connectedness with others is essential to our very capacities for autonomy and self-determination: we are rational and autonomous only because of and through our inherently social nature. By focusing on the role that relationships of love and friendship have both in the initial formation of our selves and in the on-going development and maturation of adult persons, Helm significantly alters our understanding of persons and the kind of psychology we persons have as moral and social beings.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER With unequaled insight and brio, New York Times columnist David Brooks has long explored and explained the way we live. Now Brooks turns to the building blocks of human flourishing in a multilayered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life. This is the story of how success happens, told through the lives of one composite American couple, Harold and Erica. Drawing on a wealth of current research from numerous disciplines, Brooks takes Harold and Erica from infancy to old age, illustrating a fundamental new understanding of human nature along the way: The unconscious mind, it turns out, is not a dark, vestigial place, but a creative one, where most of the brain’s work gets done. This is the realm where character is formed and where our most important life decisions are made—the natural habitat of The Social Animal. Brooks reveals the deeply social aspect of our minds and exposes the bias in modern culture that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism, and IQ. He demolishes conventional definitions of success and looks toward a culture based on trust and humility. The Social Animal is a moving intellectual adventure, a story of achievement and a defense of progress. It is an essential book for our time—one that will have broad social impact and will change the way we see ourselves and the world.
From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The 48 Laws of Power comes the definitive new book on decoding the behavior of the people around you Robert Greene is a master guide for millions of readers, distilling ancient wisdom and philosophy into essential texts for seekers of power, understanding and mastery. Now he turns to the most important subject of all - understanding people's drives and motivations, even when they are unconscious of them themselves. We are social animals. Our very lives depend on our relationships with people. Knowing why people do what they do is the most important tool we can possess, without which our other talents can only take us so far. Drawing from the ideas and examples of Pericles, Queen Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King Jr, and many others, Greene teaches us how to detach ourselves from our own emotions and master self-control, how to develop the empathy that leads to insight, how to look behind people's masks, and how to resist conformity to develop your singular sense of purpose. Whether at work, in relationships, or in shaping the world around you, The Laws of Human Nature offers brilliant tactics for success, self-improvement, and self-defense.
A pioneering neuroscientist reveals the reasons for chronic loneliness--which he defines an unrecognized syndrome--and brings it out of the shadow of its cousin, depression. 12 illustrations.
This work remains a pioneer sociological treatise on American culture. By understanding the individual not as the product of society but as its mirror image, Cooley concludes that the social order cannot be imposed from outside human nature but that it arises from the self. Cooley stimulated pedagogical inquiry into the dynamics of society with the publication of Human Nature and the Social Order in 1902. Human Nature and the Social Order is something more than an admirable ethical treatise. It is also a classic work on the process of social communication as the "very stuff" of which the self is made.
Recent archaeological discoveries from China and central Asia have changed our understanding of how human civilization developed in the period of some 4 million years before the start of written history. In this new edition of his Very Short Introduction, Chris Gosden explores the current theories on the ebb and flow of human cultural variety.
"Here is a book that I can strongly recommend for a variety of reasons. It is well written, it is scholarly, but its greatest appeal lies in the posing of an important question and in the offering of a satisfying (to this reviewer, at least) answer."ÑJournal of Historical Geography "This is an intriguing and stimulating study of historical differences in the indigenous historiography of parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Europe."ÑAmerican Anthropologist."
Emotion is a defining aspect of the human condition. Emotions pervade our social and professional lives, they affect our thinking and behavior, and they profoundly shape our relationships and social interactions. Emotions have traditionally been conceptualized and studied as individual phenomena, with research focusing on cognitive and expressive components and on physiological and neurological processes underlying emotional reactions. Over the last two decades, however, an increasing scholarly awareness has emerged that emotions are inherently social – that is, they tend to be elicited by other people, expressed at other people, and regulated to influence other people or to comply with social norms (Fischer & Manstead, 2008; Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Parkinson, 1996; Van Kleef, 2009). Despite this increasing awareness, the inclusion of the social dimension as a fundamental element in emotion research is still in its infancy (Fischer & Van Kleef, 2010). We therefore organized this special Research Topic on the social nature of emotions to review the state of the art in research and methodology and to stimulate theorizing and future research. The emerging field of research into the social nature of emotions has focused on three broad sets of questions. The first set of questions pertains to how social-contextual factors shape the experience, regulation, and expression of emotions. Studies have shown, for instance, that the social context influences the emotions people feel and express (Clark, Fitness, & Brissette, 2004; Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 2004; Fischer & Evers, 2011). The second set of questions concerns social-contextual influences on the recognition and interpretation of emotional expressions. Studies have shown that facial expressions are interpreted quite differently depending on the social context (e.g., in terms of status, culture, or gender) in which they are expressed (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002; Hess & Fischer, 2013; Mesquita & Markus, 2004; Tiedens, 2001). The third set of questions has to do with the ways in which people respond to the emotional expressions of others, and how such responses are shaped by the social context. Studies have shown that emotional expressions can influence the behavior of others, for instance in group settings (Barsade, 2002; Cheshin, Rafaeli & Bos, 2011; Heerdink, Van Kleef, Homan, & Fischer, 2013), negotiations (Sinaceur & Tiedens, 2006; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004), and leadership (Sy, Côté, & Saavedra, 2005; Van Kleef, Homan, Beersma, & Van Knippenberg, 2010). This Research Topic centers around these and related questions regarding the social nature of emotions, thereby highlighting new research opportunities and guiding future directions in the field. We bring together a collection of papers to provide an encyclopedic, open-access snapshot of the current state of the art of theorizing and research on the social nature of emotion. The state of the art work that is presented in this e-book helps advance the understanding of the social nature of emotions. It brings together the latest cutting-edge findings and thoughts on this central topic in emotion science, as it heads toward the next frontier.