William von Hippel - Böcker

“A rollicking tour through humanity’s evolutionary past, and von Hippel is the consummate tour guide. With equal parts wisdom, humor, authority, and charm, he 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 Drunk Tank Pink and IrresistibleHuman 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 but can’t help but feel 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 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 forever altered 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.

A Next Big Idea Club Must Read of February 2025"Von Hippel presents a radically new way to understand why human happiness has diminished. What’s more, he offers superlative advice for how to get back on track.” —Sonja Lyubomirsky, New York Times bestselling author of The How of HappinessFrom the author of The Social Leap comes this thought-provoking exploration into humans’ two core evolutionary needs, for connection and autonomy, how the modern world has thrown them out of whack, and how we can rebalance them to improve our lives.Why do people who have so much—leading comfortable lives filled with unprecedented freedom, choice, and abundance—often feel so unhappy and unfulfilled? This phenomenon is a defining paradox of our time and one we endlessly seek to solve. In The Social Paradox, psychologist William von Hippel argues that we need to think about this problem in a new way. By changing our perspective, we might finally see the solution, bringing us greater happiness and more satisfying relationships.The key is to understand the interplay between our two most basic psychological needs—for connection and autonomy. Evolution made us dependent on one another for survival, instilling in us a strong need to connect. It also made us seek autonomy, so our ancestors could distinguish themselves within their groups, improving their chances to procreate and gain status.These two opposing needs are our most fundamental psychological drivers, and while our lives once ensured a happy balance between them, the opportunities of today’s world have thrown it out of whack. As von Hippel explains, our modern world no longer demands connection but it provides endless opportunity for autonomy; this lopsidedness lies at the root of many of our most intractable problems. Recognizing this imbalance and working to counter it can drastically change how we make decisions, spend our time, and find happiness.The Social Paradox invites us to examine the fundamental building blocks of life and society—politics, religion, urban living, marriage—in a brand-new way. Once we understand the evolutionary forces driving us, we can begin to see how to counteract the emptiness and loneliness of contemporary life.

The objective of this book, which was originally published in 2003, is to provide an informative, scholarly yet readable overview of advances on judgmental research, and to offer a closer integration between implicit, subconscious, and explicit conscious judgmental mechanisms. The chapters draw on key research on social cognition, evolutionary psychology, neuropsychology, and personality dynamics to achieve this objective. The contributions offer important insights into the way everyday judgmental processes operate and are organized into three sections, dealing with fundamental influences on judgmental processes, the role of cognitive and intra-psychic mechanisms in social judgments and the role of social and interpersonal variables in judgments. The book is written in a readable yet scholarly style, and researchers, practitioners, and students both at the undergraduate and at the graduate level should find it an engaging overview of the field.

The objective of this book, which was originally published in 2003, is to provide an informative, scholarly yet readable overview of advances on judgmental research, and to offer a closer integration between implicit, subconscious, and explicit conscious judgmental mechanisms. The chapters draw on key research on social cognition, evolutionary psychology, neuropsychology, and personality dynamics to achieve this objective. The contributions offer important insights into the way everyday judgmental processes operate and are organized into three sections, dealing with fundamental influences on judgmental processes, the role of cognitive and intra-psychic mechanisms in social judgments and the role of social and interpersonal variables in judgments. The book is written in a readable yet scholarly style, and researchers, practitioners, and students both at the undergraduate and at the graduate level should find it an engaging overview of the field.

This book focuses on the ubiquitous and powerful effects of ostracism, social exclusion, rejection, and bullying. Human beings are an intrinsically gregarious species. Most of our evolutionary success is no doubt due to our highly developed ability to cooperate and interact with each other. It is thus not surprising that instances of interpersonal rejection and social exclusion would have an enormously detrimental impact on the individual. Until 10 years ago, however, social psychology regarded ostracism, rejection and social exclusion as merely outcomes to be avoided, but we knew very little about their antecedents and consequences, and about the processes involved when they occurred. Furthermore, the literatures of ostracism, social exclusion and rejection have not until now included discussions of the bullying literature.

This book seeks to combine the study of human social cognition - the way we think, decide, plan and analyze social situations - with an evolutionary framework that considers these activities in light of evolutionary adaptations for solving problems of survival faced by our ancestors over thousands of generations. The chapters report recent research and theories illustrating how evolutionary principles can shed new light on the subtle and often subconscious ways that cognitive mechanisms guide peoples’ thoughts, memories, judgments, attitudes and behaviors in social life. The contributors to this volume, who are leading researchers in their fields, seek answers to such intriguing questions as: how can evolutionary principles help to explain human beliefs, attitudes, judgments, prejudice, and group preferences? Are there benefits to behaving unpredictably? Why are prototypical faces more attractive than atypical ones? How do men and women think about, and select potential mates? What are the adaptive functions of negative affect? What are the evolutionary influences on the way people think about and respond to social exclusion and ostracism? Evolution and the Social Mind offers a highly integrated and representative coverage of this emerging field, and is suitable as a textbook in advanced courses dealing with social cognition and evolutionary psychology.

This book focuses on the ubiquitous and powerful effects of ostracism, social exclusion, rejection, and bullying. Human beings are an intrinsically gregarious species. Most of our evolutionary success is no doubt due to our highly developed ability to cooperate and interact with each other. It is thus not surprising that instances of interpersonal rejection and social exclusion would have an enormously detrimental impact on the individual. Until 10 years ago, however, social psychology regarded ostracism, rejection and social exclusion as merely outcomes to be avoided, but we knew very little about their antecedents and consequences, and about the processes involved when they occurred. Furthermore, the literatures of ostracism, social exclusion and rejection have not until now included discussions of the bullying literature.

This book seeks to combine the study of human social cognition - the way we think, decide, plan and analyze social situations - with an evolutionary framework that considers these activities in light of evolutionary adaptations for solving problems of survival faced by our ancestors over thousands of generations. The chapters report recent research and theories illustrating how evolutionary principles can shed new light on the subtle and often subconscious ways that cognitive mechanisms guide peoples’ thoughts, memories, judgments, attitudes and behaviors in social life. The contributors to this volume, who are leading researchers in their fields, seek answers to such intriguing questions as: how can evolutionary principles help to explain human beliefs, attitudes, judgments, prejudice, and group preferences? Are there benefits to behaving unpredictably? Why are prototypical faces more attractive than atypical ones? How do men and women think about, and select potential mates? What are the adaptive functions of negative affect? What are the evolutionary influences on the way people think about and respond to social exclusion and ostracism? Evolution and the Social Mind offers a highly integrated and representative coverage of this emerging field, and is suitable as a textbook in advanced courses dealing with social cognition and evolutionary psychology.