“The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics. At any moment several million human beings may be smitten with a new madness, and then we shall have another world war or devastating revolution. Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides, and inundations, modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche.” C G Jung
Reading the best psychology books gives us an insight into the workings of our inner selves. While we can endlessly learn about the world that seems external to us, it’s only though looking inwards that we gain a self awareness of our true motivations, passions and desires that shape our everyday behaviors.
The best psychology books teach us how to use our brains and thoughts to full effectiveness. By reading through some of these titles, you’ll learn how to relate to others better, improve your mindset, and generally improve the quality of your life through self knowledge and understanding.
Below are some of the best books about psychology that I’ve come across.
The Best Psychology Books of all Time
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business – Charles Duhigg
This now classic book that goes into great detail on the formation of habits and how we can use them to our advantage. Author Duhigg uses numerous real-world examples to show how we can achieve great things that we couldn’t have imagined through simply implementing effective habits.
You’ll read about examples from the NFL, corporate boardrooms and even the civil rights movement, and understand how building consistent habits can produce outsized results over the long term. You’ll learn the key to regular exercise, losing weight, productivity and success, and how you can start building positive habits today to help you reach your goals and transform your life.
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones – James Clear
Also dealing with the topic of habit formation and breaking, Clear’s book provides an innovative and effective system for building habits. Packed with insight, this book will undoubtedly change the way you think about obtaining success and living well.
Influence: Science and Practice – Robert B. Cialdini
Cialdini’s Influence is a classic marketing book based on years of academic research and practical experience in business. Readers will learn about the core drivers of reciprocation, consistency, social proof, like, authority and scarcity that compel people to be more likely to comply with requests. These are techniques used on us every day by advertising companies, friends and family and many more. Not only will you learn how these techniques work and how to spot them, you’ll know how to implement them to help people make the right decisions to help themselves.
Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy is popularized through this incredible memoir, which shows a true account of the author’s time spent in Nazi death camps during World War II. Experiencing and witnessing unspeakable atrocities, Frankl went on to survive and embrace a world that was fundamentally cruel and bleak to him for so long. Speaking from his own experiences and those of the many patients helped through his therapy, Frankl reveals how meaning and purpose in life allow us to endure adversity and embrace the inevitable and often confusing suffering that life brings to all of us eventually.
Frankl’s theory, counter to his contemporaries such as Freud and Nietzsche, maintains that the ‘will to meaning’ is the core driver of the human personality, and should be the individuals’ primary pursuit in the direction of their life energy.
Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman gives us a grand overview of his lifelong research as a psychologist, and helps us better understand the mind and how it shapes our behaviors. Delineating our thought processes into a ‘system 1’ and ‘system 2’, Kahneman explains through numerous examples how our decisions are often hampered by using the wrong thought pathways, and what we can do to combat it. You’ll learn how the fast, intuitive system 1 often results in overconfidence and poor prediction, and how the slower, rational system 2 can lead to disregarding our important gut feelings and result in poor decisions based on rigid logic.
Predictably Irrational – Dr. Dan Ariely
Dr. Dan Ariely shows us how we really aren’t as rational (or even as smart) as we think. Laying bare a number of our most common irrational biases, Ariely shows us how we often self-sabotage ourselves in life areas as diverse as staying fit, choosing romantic partners, financial decisions and more. You’ll find out how much we constantly overestimate, procrastinate and generally act counter intuitively to our own interests through unconscious systems built into us through millions of years of evolution.
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Games People Play – Eric Berne
We play games constantly. Power games, marital games, and competitive games with our friends. In this now-classic book, Eric Berne lays out the foundations for his Transactional Analysis framework, which allows us to understand the interactions we observe around us, and how we can more consciously act in those we take part in. Often quite funny, Berne has an amusing writing style where he names common ‘games’ you’ll have undoubtedly have encountered before, but never quite been able to put your finger on. This book will help you improve your awareness of the peculiar interactions we have with each other on a daily basis.
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success – Carol Dweck
Dweck’s mindset is the book that coined the terms ‘fixed’ and ‘growth’ mindset. A pivotally important book for many individuals, the author shows how the way we think about our abilities has a profound impact over our lifelong learning, growth and success. This book shows us how to cultivate a growth mindset that precludes healthy flourishing of the individuals’ talents, pursuit of meaning, ability to foster healthy relationships, and much more.
Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being – Martin E. P. Selligman
Some say that ‘Flourish’ was the book that jump-started the now-divisive positive psychology movement.
While psychology has traditionally been concerned with relieving suffering for patients battling mental disease, Selligman’s contribution seeks to raise the bar for what is attainable for the human condition. Concentrating on cultivating purpose, positive emotion, relationships and accomplishments, Flourish shows how these can be combined to act as the pillars for a deeply fulfilling, positive life. You’ll learn about emotional resilience, obtaining fulfillment and how to generally improve your wellbeing. This isn’t a self-help book, but it’s academic findings make this even more interesting.
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking – Oliver Burkeman
The author of this book is deeply read and careful in his thought and writing. This is a really well accomplished examination of what really helps us be more content and satisfied in our psychological lives, and shy’s away from the positive psychology movement which can often come across as unrealistic to certain personality types.
Burkeman shows us how many of the things that promise ‘happiness’ in life – wealth, romance, work – are prone to bring just as much stress as short-lived joy. Instead, the author draws from a wide source of influences including stoic philosophy, buddhism, and more to come to an integrated understanding of what happiness is and our best way to go about living the best quality of life possible. The epilogue of the author’s conclusions is especially powerful, and shows a thoughtful and intelligent author who, while a self-proclaimed pessimist by nature, arrives at a peculiarly hopeful and uplifting outlook. Very nice book.
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ – Daniel Goleman
While traditional IQ tests give some estimate of raw intelligence in individuals, it’s unable to act as a reliable prediction of one’s future happiness, success or integrity.
Goleman argues that while the regular IQ test can give a rough estimate of our rational capacity, it disregards it’s essential counterpart which is emotional intelligence. This is a thought provoking read that really shows how it is the emotional element of life that ultimately has the biggest impact on our success, contentedness and more.
The Undiscovered Self: The Dilemma of the Individual in Modern Society – C G Jung
Famed psychoanalyst C G Jung argues that the survival of Western culture rests on the ability of individuals to resist what he calls ‘the collective forces of society’. As the bloody history of the 20th century has shown, many are driven to join in to fanatical or ideological causes which often lead to great catastrophe. Jung reveals how understanding the ‘shadow’ of our inner selves allows us to recognize the fact that we are all individually capable of acts of atrocity. This classic psychology book shows how by developing our individual integrity and self understanding, we can enable great change in society and avoid catastrophe.
Man and His Symbols – C G Jung
A collection of four essays by Jungian analysts written before Jung’s death, Man and His Symbols is a classic study of dreams, symbols and the inner world of the psyche. A great introductory text to Jungian ideas, this book shows how the analyst can work to reveal intentions of the subconscious, and lead the patient to greater self understanding and integration of unconscious aspects of their personality. This is one of the few works by Jung addressed to a general audience, which also helps it’s accessibility as an entry point for this fascinating thinker.
The Social Animal – Elliot Aronson
This book is considered by many to be a classic in the field of social psychology. Author Elliot Aronson fills this book with examples and studies of diverse topics such as conformity, obedience, race relations, attraction and advertising. Along the way, readers gain a fascinating perspective on a slew of perennially interesting topics from a master of his field.
Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change – Timothy D Wilson
Famous author Malcolm Gladwell called this book a “masrerpiece”, and the impact it’s had on some reviewers on Amazon seems to give some credence to this claim. Redirect is author Timothy Wilson’s summation of the power of narrative over our psychological health. Pulling from dozens of examples and giving practical applications for teenagers, parents and schoolteachers, Redirect shows us how simple shifts in the stories we tell ourselves about the events that happen to us can have profound and lasting effects on our mental health and well-being.
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Last Updated on August 19, 2020 by Taylor Pearson