8 Books to Improve Your Understanding of People

You’ll enjoy the new books coming out this year if you’re keen to learn about how people think, feel, learn, and act. These 8 nonfiction books about understanding of people are like a crash course in human psychology that will totally captivate you. They range from a guide to discerning the hidden meaning behind someone’s words to a book giving the results of the greatest happiness research to date.

The Invention of Tomorrow

Thomas Suddendorf

Our ability to think about the future is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. In The Invention of Tomorrow, cognitive scientists Thomas Suddendorf, Jonathan Redshaw, and Adam Bulley argue that its emergence transformed humans from unremarkable primates to creatures that hold the destiny of the planet in their hands. Drawing on their own cutting-edge research, the authors break down the science of foresight, showing us where it comes from, how it works, and how it made our world. Journeying through biology, psychology, history, and culture.

Release Date: September 20, 2022

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Awe

Dacher Keltner

Awe is mysterious. How do we begin to quantify the goose bumps we feel when we see the Grand Canyon, or the utter amazement when we watch a child walk for the first time? How do you put into words the collective effervescence of standing in a crowd and singing in unison, or the wonder you feel while gazing at centuries-old works of art?

Up until fifteen years ago, there was no science of awe, the feeling we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that transcend our understanding of the world. Scientists were studying emotions like fear and disgust, emotions that seemed essential to human survival.

Release Date: January 3, 2023

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Attention Span

Gloria Mark

We spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention. It takes 25 minutes to bring our attention back to a task after an interruption. And we interrupt ourselves more than we’re interrupted by others. In Attention Span, psychologist Gloria Mark reveals these and more surprising results from her decades of research into how technology affects our attention. She shows how much of what we think we know is wrong. While the concept of “flow” has previously been considered the ideal state of focus, Dr. Mark offers a new framework to help explain how our brains function in the digital world.

Release Date: January 10, 2023

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Outsmart Your Brain

Daniel T. Willingham

When we study, we tend to focus on the tasks we can most easily control—such as highlighting and rereading—but these practices only give the illusion of mastery. As Dan Willingham, professor of psychology and bestselling author, explains, familiarity is not the same as comprehension.

Perfect for teachers and students of all ages, Outsmart Your Brain provides real-world practices and the latest research on how to train your brain for better learning. Each chapter provides clear and specific strategies while also explaining why traditional study processes do not work.

Release Date: January 24, 2023

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Sensitive

Andre Sólo and Jenn Granneman

Everyone has a sensitive side, but nearly 1 in 3 people have the genes to be more sensitive than others—both physically and emotionally. These are the people who pause before speaking and think before acting; they tune into subtle details and make connections that others miss.

They tend to be intelligent, big-hearted, and wonderfully creative; they are wired to go deep, yet society tells them to hide the very sensitivity that makes them this way. These are the world’s “highly sensitive people,” and Sensitive is the book that champions them.

Release Date: February 28, 2023

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Psych

Paul Bloom

How does the brain—a three-pound wrinkly mass—give rise to intelligence and conscious experience? Was Freud right that we are all plagued by forbidden sexual desires? What is the function of emotions such as disgust, gratitude, and shame? Renowned psychologist Paul Bloom answers these questions and many more in Psych, his riveting new book about the science of the mind.

Psych is an expert and passionate guide to the most intimate aspects of our nature, serving up the equivalent of a serious university course while being funny, engaging, and full of memorable anecdotes.

Release Date: February 28, 2023

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Foolproof

Sander van der Linden

From fake news to conspiracy theories, from pandemics to politics, misinformation may be the defining problem of our era. Like a virus, misinformation infects our minds—altering our beliefs and replicating at astonishing rates. Once the virus takes hold, our primary strategies of fact-checking and debunking are an ineffective cure.

In Foolproof, psychologist Sander van der Linden introduces a new paradigm for combatting what the World Health Organization has declared a worldwide “infodemic.” Synthesizing decades of social psychology studies with groundbreaking original research.

Release Date: March 21, 2023

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For the Culture

Marcus Collins

We all try to influence others in our daily lives. We are all marketers, whether you are a manager motivating your team, an employee making a big presentation, an activist staging a protest, or a teacher trying to encourage your students. In For the Culture, Marcus Collins argues that true cultural engagement is the most powerful vehicle for influencing behavior. To effectively engage with communities we first need to think hard about what we will contribute to those communities. Collins uses stories from his own life as a top marketer, from spearheading digital strategy for Beyoncé, to working with iTunes and Nike+.

Release Date: May 2, 2023

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Tags: General Nonfiction