A study of how evolution has forged our modern lives—from work and relationships to leadership and innovation, as well as our quest for happiness. Human psychology is rife with contradictions: We work hard to achieve our goals, but happiness at our success is fleeting. We hope our friends will do well in life but can’t help feeling jealous if they do too well. We’re aghast at the thought of people we know being murdered but are unconcerned when our armed forces kill enemies we’ve never met. We complain about difficult bosses but are often just as bad when we’re in charge. These inconsistencies may seem irrational, but each of them has evolved to serve a vital function in our lives. Indeed, the most fundamental aspects of our psychology were permanently shaped by the “social leap” our ancestors made from the rainforest to the savannah. In their struggle to survive on the open grasslands, our ancestors prioritized teamwork and sociality over physical prowess, creating an entirely new kind of intelligence that would forever alter our place on this planet. A blend of anthropology, biology, history, and psychology with evolutionary science, The Social Leap traces our evolutionary history to show how events in our distant past continue to shape our lives today. From why we exaggerate to why we believe our own lies, the implications are far-reaching and extraordinary. Praise for The Social Leap Winner of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Book Prize “A rollicking tour through humanity’s evolutionary past. . . . Von Hippel shows how our past explains the present and why our well-being rests on an understanding of how our minds evolved.” —Adam Alter, New York Times–bestselling author of Irresistible “Full of insight into human character, von Hippel’s book provides a stimulating program for measuring success without material yardsticks.” —Kirkus Reviews

Our chimpish ancestors were superbly adapted to a life of leaping through the trees. To survive on the savannah, they had to make a social leap — a change that drives us still today. Human psychology is rife with contradictions: We work hard to achieve our goals, but when we succeed, our happiness is fleeting compared with our efforts. We hope our friends will do well in life, but can’t help feeling jealous if they do too well. We’re aghast at the thought of people we know being murdered, even if we despise them, but are unconcerned when our armed forces kill enemies who are strangers to us. We complain about difficult bosses, but are often behave just as badly when we're in charge. These inconsistencies may seem irrational, but each of them has evolved to serve a vital function in our lives. Indeed, the most fundamental aspects of our psychology were permanently shaped by the ‘social leap’ our ancestors made from the rainforest to the savannah. In their struggle to survive on the open grasslands, our ancestors prioritised teamwork and sociality over physical prowess, creating an entirely new kind of intelligence that forever altered our place on this planet. In The Social Leap, leading psychologist William von Hippel traces our evolutionary history to show how events in our distant past continue to shape our lives today. From the everyday, such as why we exaggerate, to the exotic, such as why we believe our own lies, the implications are far-reaching and extraordinary. Blending anthropology, biology, history, and psychology with evolutionary science, The Social Leap is a fresh, provocative look at our species. It provides new clues about who we are, why we do what we do, and how to live the good life.

This book explores the idea that knowing is a feeling that results from the interactions of the brain's unconscious and conscious processes and not through the accumulation of facts. It explains what neuroscience and psychology reveal about what it means to know and how our brain learns.

Develop a sense of safety and connection in our youth Research shows that a sense of belonging has a profound effect on the physical, mental, and social well-being of children and adolescents. Yet, current events, including the decline of community and rising tensions over racial and economic inequalities, have endangered that fragile and critical component—and nowhere is this felt more acutely than in schools. In Belonging, the author, who has spent decades working with the most challenging students, provides research-based strategies to strengthen relationships, build inclusive classrooms, develop trust, and foster a sense of psychological safety. Readers will find: Vignettes demonstrating how belonging applies to a variety of learning contexts Research around mindsets, the development of empathy, and community-building Sections dedicated to equity and inclusion Strategies teachers can directly apply in their classrooms With his deep knowledge of education, behavior, and neuroscience, Dustin Bindreiff provides a fresh look at the troubling issues our students face and provides practical strategies for building a more hopeful future.

This book explains how Richard Boyle became the wealthiest English landowner of his generation.

How researchers understood the atomic bomb’s effects on the human psyche before the recognition of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In 1945, researchers on a mission to Hiroshima with the United States Strategic Bombing Survey canvassed survivors of the nuclear attack. This marked the beginning of global efforts—by psychiatrists, psychologists, and other social scientists—to tackle the complex ways in which human minds were affected by the advent of the nuclear age. A trans-Pacific research network emerged that produced massive amounts of data about the dropping of the bomb and subsequent nuclear tests in and around the Pacific rim. Ran Zwigenberg traces these efforts and the ways they were interpreted differently across communities of researchers and victims. He explores how the bomb’s psychological impact on survivors was understood before we had the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder. In fact, psychological and psychiatric research on Hiroshima and Nagasaki rarely referred to trauma or similar categories. Instead, institutional and political constraints—most notably the psychological sciences’ entanglement with Cold War science—led researchers to concentrate on short-term damage and somatic reactions or even, in some cases, on denial of victims’ suffering. As a result, very few doctors tried to ameliorate suffering. But, Zwigenberg argues, it was not only that doctors “failed” to issue the right diagnosis; the victims’ experiences also did not necessarily conform to our contemporary expectations. As he shows, the category of trauma should not be used uncritically in a non-Western context. Consequently, this book sets out, first, to understand the historical, cultural, and scientific constraints in which researchers and victims were acting and, second, to explore how suffering was understood in different cultural contexts before PTSD was a category of analysis.