New Books in Psychology

In the early twentieth century, Robert Hertz, a French anthropologist, and Cesare Lombroso, the Italian criminologist, debated the causes and consequences of left-handedness. According to Lombroso, left-handed individuals were more likely to be criminals. Hertz disagreed. For him, to restrict left-handedness was to suppress individual expression. In his book, On the Other Hand: Left Hand, Right Brain, Mental Disorder, and History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), Howard I. Kushner explores the fascinating and circuitous history of left-handedness. By looking at a wide variety of scientific research, as well as the cultural meanings attached to left-handedness, Kushner breaks down the binary between nature and nurture that has characterized most explanations of what some researchers have called non-right-handedness. Ultimately Kushner argues that discrimination against left-handers can be read as a barometer for a given society’s toleration of diversity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Some people can’t help but be ‘awkward’ despite their lifelong efforts to blend in. They feel ashamed of their social ineptitude and end up shying away from social situations, yet research offers insights that could help. In his new book, Awkward: The Science of Why We’re Socially Awkward and Why That’s Awesome (Harper Collins, 2017), Ty Tashiro reviews research findings that explain socially ‘awkward’ behavior and offer strategies for acquiring social fluency. In our interview, Tashiro explains what defines an ‘awkward’ person and shares anecdotes from his own experience that take us into the mind of such a person. We also discuss how modern social life has evolved in ways that make everyone feel a bit more awkward in everyday social situations. His ideas offer new, kinder ways to think about awkwardness that anyone who identifies as awkward—or loves someone who does—would find helpful and illuminating. Ty Tashiro is the author of The Science of Happily Ever After (William Morrow, 2017). His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time.com, TheAtlantic.com, and on NPR and Sirius XM Stars radio. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota, has been an award-winning professor at the University of Maryland and University of Colorado, and has addressed TED@NYC, Harvard Business School, MIT’s Media Lab, and the American Psychological Association. He lives in New York City. Eugenio Duarte, Ph.D. is a psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in gender and sexuality, eating and body image, and relationship issues. He is a graduate of the psychoanalytic training program at William Alanson White Institute, where he also chairs their monthly LGBTQ Study Group.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In The Ostrich Paradox: Why We Underprepare for Disasters (Wharton Digital Press, 2017), Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther summarize six major cognitive biases that explain why humans fail to adequately prepare for potential disasters. Leveraging examples of high-impact events, The Ostrich Paradox summarizes how preparedness efforts are affected by issues with human memory, risk probability comprehension, and information overload. Finally, the authors provide a tool for assessing and mitigating these biases through a behavioral risk audit. The book is a slim volume that may lend itself for use in professional settings as a training tool.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Embracing a multi-perspectival authorial voice, Managing Madness: Weyburn Mental Hospital and the Transformation of Psychiatric Care in Canada (University of Manitoba Press, 2017), tells the story of the “last and largest” asylum in the British Commonwealth. From its founding in the 1920s until the age of deinstitutionalization, Weyburn Mental Hospital was central to the changing landscape of psychiatric care in Canada and beyond. Using a wide variety of documentary sources, Erika Dyck and Alex Deighton explore Weyburn’s rise and fall, from its role in Canada’s nation-building project to new experiments with LSD and the move towards community care. They also give voice to the often forgotten experience of patients, psychiatric nurses, and mental health activists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

What if you suddenly discovered a cherished member of your family was a Nazi? How would you make sense of the code of silence that had kept an uncomfortable reality at bay? How would you resolve the wartime suffering of your family with their moral culpability for the Holocaust? Roger Frie explores the thorny issue of historical memory and intergenerational trauma in his new award winning book Not in My Family: German Memory and Responsibility After the Holocaust (Oxford University Press, 2017). In an intensely personal confrontation with the Nazi past in his own family, Roger searches for ways to navigate historical traumas and reconcile the memory of his grandfather with the knowledge of his deeds. Roger Frie is a registered psychologist and interdisciplinary scholar in the fields of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and history. He publishes and lectures widely on historical trauma, culture, memory, and human interaction. Roger has also edited a collection of essays bringing together historians and psychoanalysts to further examine the dynamics of intergenerational trauma entitled History Flows Through Us: Germany, the Holocaust, and the Importance of Empathy (Routledge, 2018). Ryan Stackhouse is a historian of modern Europe specializing in Germany and political policing under dictatorship. His research exploring Gestapo enforcement practices toward different social groups is nearing completion under the working title Policing Hitler’s Critics. He also cohosts the Third Reich History Podcast and can be reached at john.ryan.stackhouse@gmail.com or @Staxomatix Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

The Age of Lone Wolf Terrorism (Columbia University Press, 2017), by Mark S. Hamm and Ramon Spaaij, identifies patterns among individuals that commit acts of terror outside of a group or network. Hamm and Spaaij follow these individuals, commonly called lone wolf terrorists, through multiple data points to inform a model of radicalization. The trends and changes in lone wolf terrorists, targets of violence, and radicalization pathways over time provides valuable insights for counterterrorism efforts. Finally, Hamm and Spaaij examine FBI sting operations that aim to prevent terrorist attacks. Beth Windisch is a national security practitioner. You can tweet her @bethwindisch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Are we good people? Or do we just think we are? In his new book The Character Gap: How Good Are We? (Oxford University Press, 2017), author Christian B. Miller tackles these questions and more, breaking down what character is, how to measure it, and how to distinguish good from bad moral behavior. In our interview, Miller talks to us about finding his way into this area of study and what research says about our tendencies to display our best and worst qualities. His insights and findings offer us the chance to better understand whats going on when we witness ourselves, our loved ones, and even our highest-ranking leaders behaving in ways that run against consciously-held morals. They also offer pathways for developing and inspiring more upstanding behavior. Christian B. Miller is A.C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University and Director of the Character Project, funded by the John Templeton Foundation and Templeton World Charity Foundation. He is the author of over 75 papers as well as two books with Oxford University Press,Moral Character: An Empirical Theory (2013) and Character and Moral Psychology (2014). He is also the editor or co-editor of Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford University Press), Character: New Directions from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology (Oxford University Press), and several other volumes. Eugenio Duarte, Ph.D. is a psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in gender and sexuality, eating and body image, and relationship issues. He is a graduate of the psychoanalytic training program at William Alanson White Institute, where he also chairs their monthly LGBTQ Study Group.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Obesity and weight loss are notoriously challenging areas of research and intervention. Traditional behavioral psychology methods for weight loss are known to be ineffective in the long-term for many people. At a time of year when many of us are resolving to eat better, exercise more, and lose weight, obesity and weight loss expert Dr. Jason Lillis offers a different, evidence-based perspective on this complicated issue. In this interview, cross-posted from the podcast Psychologists Off The Clock, Dr. Diana Hill interview Dr. Lillis about his book, The Diet Trap: Feed Your Psychological Needs and End the Weight Loss Struggle Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (New Harbinger Publications, 2014).Dr. Lillis discusses his own values-based reasons for studying obesity, the importance of behavioral interventions, why the “weight loss agenda” may be an ineffective trap, and how values can support long-term commitment to health behaviors. Dr. Lillis also talks about two exercises from ACT that can help people with body appreciation and values-directed behaviors. Jason Lillis is an assistant professor at the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center at Brown Medical School and the Miriam Hospital. He is a leading ACT researcher who is currently running NIH grants aimed at developing and testing ACT methods for health behavior change, with a specific focus on weight control and physical activity. He is the author of three books:The Diet Trap, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Theories of Psychotherapy), and Mindfulness and Acceptance for Treating Eating Disorders and Weight Concerns, and is an editor for the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. Diana Hill, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist practicing in Santa Barbara, California, and a co-host of the podcast Psychologists Off The Clock.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Middle-agedness is a curious phenomenon. In many ways, one is at one’s peak and also at the early stages of decline. There is much to do, but also dozens of paths irretrievably untaken. Successes, but also regrets. It’s no wonder that the idea of a midlife crisis is so familiar. But midlife is not commonly a subject of explicit philosophical study. In Midlife: A Philosophical Guide (Princeton University Press, 2017), Kieran Setiya develops a philosophical account of the crises associated with midlife that combines the precision of a philosophical treatise with the narrative and advice-giving of a self-help manual. The result is a fascinating exploration of the challenges that come with growing old. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Who do people turn to when they want to talk about serious issues in their life? Do they end up confiding in people they list as confidants? In his new book, Someone to Talk To (Oxford University Press, 2017), Mario Luis Small uses in-depth interviews with first-year graduate students to uncover how intimate conversations are executed in real time. This book is interesting in the way that the interviews unfold; readers will find themselves nodding in agreement and thinking about social networks in new ways. A common theme throughout the book is how our behavior differs from what we may answer on a survey and under what circumstances it does so. For instance, weak ties, not strong ties, are relied upon more often than previous research would suggest. At the end of the book Small turns to empirical and theoretical generalizability finding many examples and surveys of non-graduates students echoing his study. In an era of big data Small encourages us to not lose sight of the human behavior we are studying and the stories behind the data. This book is rich with ideas and stories but would be easily digested by many different types of readers. Sociologists, and particularly those studying social networks, will find the book useful. Graduate students, advisers, and graduate program chairs will find the insights in the book invaluable. This book is a clear fit for a Social Networks class, but would even work as an example in a methods or theory class. Sarah E. Patterson is a postdoc at the University of Western Ontario. You can tweet her at @spattersearch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology