(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best psychology books on human behaviour

Ha ha... You sound just like me - in the sense of having a lot of mixed emotions (less mixed these days...).

Basically, what lead me to consider quitting was that I felt totally ineffective and a bit of a fraud (in the sense that colleagues and patients seemed to have a positive impression of me but I was too painfully aware of my shortcomings). Also, the job was just a lot more stressful than it was satisfying. There are different kinds of stressful. I have no problem with the stressful that results from being really busy - like getting a bunch of dysphagia consults at the end of the day on Friday. That's can be exciting in a weird way. The kind of stressfull that I LOATHE is the kind that comes from not knowing what to do. Now, here's something important about "not knowing what to do," it doesn't bother me so much when I know that no one knows what to do - and that's the benefit of knowing the research. It prevents you from blaming yourself about things that are NOT reasonable to blame yourself about. There are limits to our science/understanding. But if you don't have a good grasp of the research on a disorder you're treating, it will be easy to imagine that you should be achieving more results than you are. All of the lecturing directed our way is about knowing the research so you know what to do! No one says that there's equal benefit to knowing the limits of what we can do...

I'm satisfied with the work when I feel a certain amount of confidence about it. Early in my career, I spent most of my time reading the research on different treatments. That helped a lot, but if I had to do it over again, I'd do a couple of things differently. First, I'd focus more on reading and understanding theories related to my work. It's not as immediately satisfying as reading treatment research, and it can be a rat's nest of different ideas and concepts, but eventually it allows you do to develop a depth of understanding that you'll never get by just know different treatments (and FOR SURE you'll never get there by relying on CEUs). Theory allows you to understand WHY something works or doesn't work and that's been the key to my confidence and it allows me to develop my own treatments and feel confident that they have a strong rationale. I like feeling creative at work and feeling confident that I can develop my own treatments or modify others' treatments is satisfying. The second area, and this has been HUGE for me, is to really understand the science of motivation. When it comes right down to it, the reason our clients do or don't maximize their outcomes is not because we chose the right treatment, it's determined by how engaged and persistent our patients are. There are two theories (in order of importance) that I think are supremely helpful to SLPs, no matter what age group or disorder they treat. By far, Self-determination theory has been the most useful to me followed by self-efficacy theory..

Here are the book I would by and start to devour:
The Bible of SDT https://www.amazon.com/Self-Determination-Theory-Psychological-Motivation-Development/dp/1462538967/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ryan+deci&qid=1565971431&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Useful books for understanding how to put SDT into practice:
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Determination-Theory-Practice-Supportive-Environment-ebook/dp/B06W9P1XTY/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=la+guardia+self-determination&qid=1565971515&s=gateway&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Motivation-Therapists-Children/dp/1849051259/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ziviani+motivation&qid=1565971561&s=gateway&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Setting-Motivation-Therapy-Engaging-ebook/dp/B00WRNEM4S/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1565971587&refinements=p_27%3AJenny+Ziviani&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Jenny+Ziviani

Two of the books above are focused on Kids and the first is focused on adults. All of them are useful no matter what age or didorder you work with because the factors that influence motivation are universal.

Finally, I would find a way to get trained in Motivational Interviewing (MI). But I would not do it until I had developed some familiarity with SDT and self-efficacy theory. One of the weaknesses of MI is that it was not developed out of any theoretical foundation, which limits its applicability. Also, MI doesn't do a very good job of helping us understand why a motivational intervention may or may not work, doesn't do a great job helping us understand all of the influences on motivation, or why some goals are more motivating than other, etc. The benefit of learning MI is that it will give you a great toolbag of counseling techniques that you can leverage in order to put theories like SDT into practice.

Sorry for the long ass response. There's probably lots of typos but I'm too busy right now to go back and fix them.

Active imagination was the term Jung applied to a method of approaching the unconscious towards engaging in its contents; emotion, dreams and personified images (archetypes), using imagination creatively in response by which a conscious integration process is undertaken thus affecting healing. It is based on what he identified as a function of the psyche he called the 'transcendent function', both a function and a process that brings together opposing and unconscious aspects of ones psyche into a more harmonious and balanced relationship towards a realisation of wholeness (or Self, in a Jungian sense).

>The tendencies of the conscious and the unconscious are the two factors that together make up the transcendent function. It is called “transcendent” because it makes the transition from one attitude to another organically possible.

“The Transcendent Function,” CW 8, par. 145.

>Once the unconscious content has been given form and the meaning of the formulation is understood, the question arises as to how the ego will relate to this position, and how the ego and the unconscious are to come to terms. This is the second and more important stage of the procedure, the bringing together of opposites for the production of a third: the transcendent function. At this stage it is no longer the unconscious that takes the lead, but the ego.

ibid., par. 181.

Means employed to actively engage in this process, entering and being attendant to unconscious imaginative products as they arise, can involve writing, drawing, painting, performance with ones body, clay or sand work, and so on.

The method involves holding and focusing in a particular state, a mood, an emotion or image, and actively, consciously, engaging it, asking questions, drawing it out in some manner, entertaining it imaginatively, towards extending its content, to develop a more consciously grasped relationship to whatever it is and represents; that is to make the unconscious conscious, and thus affect integration.

There's a book called Jung on Active Imagination by Joan Chodorow, that gathers together Jungs separate writings on the subject, and another that contextualises and expands it in relation to the concept of The Transcendent Function. These might be helpful towards further clarification?

The following is from the introduction in Chodorow's book:

>Active imagination has two parts or stages: First, letting the unconscious come up; and, second, coming to terms with the unconscious. As I understand Jung, it is a natural process that may go on over many years. Sometimes it takes a long time to assimilate the material. Jung spent the last fifty years of his life coming to terms with the emotions and fantasies that at first overwhelmed him..

p10

>In his discussion of the first step, Jung speaks of the need for systematic exercises to eliminate critical attention and produce a vacuum in consciousness. This part of the experience is familiar to many psychological approaches and forms of meditation. It involves a suspension of our rational, critical facilities in order to give free rein to fantasy..

ibid.

>There are many ways to approach active imagination. At first, the unconscious takes the lead while the conscious ego serves as a kind of attentive inner witness and perhaps scribe or recorder. The task is to gain access to the contents of the unconscious.

>In the second part of active imagination, consciousness takes the lead. As the affects and images of the unconscious flow into awareness, the ego enters actively into the experience. This part might begin with a spontaneous string of insights; the larger task of evaluation and integration remains. insight must be converted into an ethical obligation - to live it in life.

ibid.

Further, elsewhere in the introduction (it's a really good introduction, summarising what this method is about), it mentions proposed subdivisions of the process developed by Jungian Authors. Marie-Louise Von Franz for example proposed; 1) Empty the 'mad mind' of the ego; 2) Let an unconscious fantasy image arise; 3) Give it some form of expression; and 4) Ethical confrontation; "Later on she adds: apply it to ordinary life." There are a number of other variations from other authors described, more or less covering the same ground and process: The task and approach remains that of bringing unconscious content into consciousness to be confronted and integrated.

There is a caveat to this though:

>The major danger of the method involves being overwhelmed by the powerful affects, impulses and images of the unconscious. It should be attempted only by psychologically mature individuals who are capable of withstanding a powerful confrontation with the unconscious. A well-developed ego standpoint is needed so that the conscious and unconsciousness may encounter each other as equals..

ibid.

There's more to it that could be elaborated on, but that's the gist of it, as far as I understand it and work with presently.

Please remember I am time restricted on these videos, if I spelled everything out it would be hours and hours. I used these anecdotes because I see them as representative of much larger trends of the people I lived around.

Also, I grew up an hour east of D.C.. There are regional cultural differences to the United States. My experiences may not generalize to the Midwest, the South or other areas of the U.S..

But I'm not the only one who's noticed these patters. Social scientists have also noticed these things. Many people experience an extended adolescence. As I mentioned in the video the description I gave for the middle class has not been an uncommon one for several centuries. Narcissistic traits is more common among young people. This trend isn't new either. Christopher Lasch wrote The Culture of Narcissism originally back in 1979. Before him, back in the 1950's there was The Lonely Crowd.

Nothing I presented in this video is new, and there's plenty of more social science out there all saying the same thing.

>you're a tad judgemental

Every time someone has said this to me it's turned out that I'm judging people accurately and they don't like it.

>That girl in your creative writing class could have just been voicing her edgy views on love out of frustration from a recent relationship

I wouldn't have brought it up if I hadn't seen that pattern continue to play itself out in many other people. Also, as I mentioned in the video, for a long time I didn't want to believe a lot of people thought the way she did. But over my lifetime people kept showing me who they are and I have chosen to believe them. Is everyone like this? No. Are too many people like this? Yes. Too many people grow old but never grow up.

>Those people rushing into marriage might have just been voicing a quiet anxiety, and were conscious that they should only marry someone they were truly committed too.

Those came right out and said what they were doing. All of the marriages either ended in divorce or the people were unhappy years later. When people show you who they are, you should believe them.

>The woman at your work whom you spoke to about having a wife might have been joking, like you were, when she listed all the supposed utilities of marriage.

She was being serious.

>I don't think you should chew gum when you make videos. The sound is kind of gross.

Ok, good to know.

>You mention that "there's more to life than a romance novel". Is there?

Yes there is and artists, religions and philosophers have warned people for centuries about this.

>can you say that people who live their life in pursuit of pleasure/love/affection are living a worse life than you?

There lives are not fully human, so yes I can. We can know them by their fruits: college students are experiencing a mental health crisis. There is an obesity epidemic. One in four women take mental health meds. This just scratches the surface of the malaise.

>You seem to have a really rigid idea of adulthood and maturity

Yeah I expect adults to act like adults. That's not too much to ask.

> like it's your privilege to define what makes someone an adult

When people stop acting like over-sized children and I'll stop calling people out on acting like over-sized children.

>Like some great mental crevice is hopped when your intellectual balls drop and you can then show basic tact and decency.

I do show basic tact and decency my problem is that too many other people don't.

>I'd also like to reiterate that I liked this video overall. You're well spoken, and the content was interesting.

Thank you.

Positive psychology is a field within "regular" psychology, and is a discipline that concerns itself with "The study of what constitutes the pleasant life, the engaged life, and the meaningful life". The positive psychology movement has been spearheaded by Martin Seligman, former head of American Psychological Association. He has several books on Amazon.

A good place to start would probably be Flourish by Martin Seligman.

If you want to dig further I can recommend [Character Strengths and Virtues] (https://www.amazon.com/Character-Strengths-Virtues-Handbook-Classification-ebook/dp/B0054WFG4Y/). I think this book is great, though it is expensive.

Another good one is Positive Psychology in Practice: Promoting Human Flourishing in Work, Health, Education, and Everyday Life, which is a collection of academic articles on positive psychology.

Edit: The wikipedia page also has some stuff that might be interesting.

I recently just finished reading Behavior Modification 10e ^1, and I learned so much about how Conditioning and learning is involved in so many things we do. I believe that learning and hypnosis are related, and that hypnosis cannot persist without learning, specifically through the use of operant conditioning. For example, think back to a time you had a good subject that at first had no idea what hypnosis was. The first induction was likely used to explain what hypnosis is and how they may experience it for themselves. In doing this, you may suggest to them what they may eventually feel, in short you are creating an expectation of trance (you are making them more sensitive to hypnotic phenomena, which is a result of learning) which when you have sufficiently paced the client, some hypnotic phenomena develops, which is in response to your suggestions. If you give them effective suggestions to maintain the trance, then what you are actually doing is pairing natural functions (like breathing or awareness of certain things) with relaxation or some other desirable outcome that serves as a backup reinforcer that allows the trance state to persist. As this is reinforced, and is itself reinforcing, it gives the subject the ability to self-perpetuate the trance. This allows you the ability to suggest other things so that you can accomplish what was set out from the beginning of the session initially. (This is why pre-talks are so important, as you are using this time to associate parts of trance with desirable responses!)

And while you don't need to look into conditioning and learning to use it in practice right now, your understanding of your practice only grows the more you learn about hypnosis and the way people learn.

Another example:
You may give them a trigger to feel a little deeper or to go into a trance when they hear x or y, and every time they do this, you and the client are experiencing operant conditioning, reinforcement towards the desired response (which is initiating the behaviors that lead to the hypnotic state). The auditory cue of the word, depending on how discriminate you make the condition, will make this trigger occur more frequently or less frequently.

Hypnotic phenomena has been shown to be more easily produced in some people more easily than others. What that means varies: Because hypnosis is fixating one's attention for the purpose of achieving a goal of some kind, then there's many ways to produce hypnotic responses. Usually this can be done by finding the things they REALLY enjoy such as positive reinforcers.
People can use these as coping mechanisms, which in themselves are very reinforcing, and can be paired with other things to create higher order conditioning; to associate with a cue that may increase pleasure or produce relaxation during trance. For people whom are effective at dissociating, or those who have a strong sensitization to suggestion (prone to fantasy, are able to visualize and experience senses strongly when suggested) they may have learned to pair more senses with the things they've learned, so there's a breadth of associations themselves to produce 'hypnotic behavior' such as when reading the following sentence feeling the sensation of sucking on a lemon and the juice seeping into the taste buds on your tongue. Its a byproduct of our ability to comprehend and produce language; some of those learned words become associated with other senses and experiences. That is one reason why hypnosis is easier for some than others, whether they intended to while growing up or not. They may simply have developed specific learning strategies that encourage trance phenomena. (This can also be learned, and that is what hypnotists can try to mirror in their posture, breathing, speaking, etc. so the subject can learn through observation)

The biggest takeaway from my examples here is that hypnosis and the phenomena produced are not just a particular kind of learning, it is a multidimensional process of learning. The reinforcers and stimuli for each subject will be individualized but the goal is to learn how to apply them in a way that both parties want so that it achieves the goal of influencing the subject towards a desired outcome or away from an undesirable one.

^1 https://www.amazon.com/Behavior-Modification-What-How-Do/dp/0205992102/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1527176363&sr=8-2&keywords=behavior+modification

PsychologyToday isn't that great as well, on an in depth level. For me, I've found myself aimlessly surfing through the oversimplified/summaried articles, that only veers on the surface level of things.

• "Emotionally instability" -- but what does that explain?
  
  Honestly, the pathology spreads across so many different disciplines/schools of thought, that I had to go through many different academic literature to grasp a conceptual understanding; attachment psychology, complex traumatic stress, neuroscience, developmental psychology, developmental trauma, object-relations, intrapsychic ego (impulsiveness/ego management/emotional-pull-push with people), dissociation, as well as marital therapy and sociological Asian American (to understand the cultural barriers/friction with mental health, then I'm looking towards understanding MBT and DBT, as a way to empathize.
  
  I've pretty much have most of the "mainstream" BPD books out there, and I think the Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified does a fairly good job providing a detailed overview of the prognosis of those with BPD. However, I've come across Borderline Personality Disorder: New Reasons for Hope again, and I think it may be more promising after skimming through it. I passed on it when I first forayed into BPD literature, instead opting for simpler books; however, I've come to realize that has only lead to the surface level of things as well.
  
  
  As for Randi, her book does more oversimplification which is consequently harmful, than the righteousness of doing good it wistfully intends. It also seems that she is using/projecting the book and her participation in the BPD community as a collective coping mechanism for her past. IDK
  
  Your website is great. I feel research/literature wise, we're reaching a point where we have a good amount research/literature on BPD that provides contemporary answers, but it's still fragmented across cross-topics/disciplines. We have top-experts in their own specialization like Otto Von in PTSD that usually have a chapter on BPD in their textbooks, and I reckon there should be more work from everyone into encompassing a collaborative comprehensive text for this highly niche subject of BPD, that entails not just one sole disciplinary focus.

Two more thoughts:

a. Leverage

b. Work hours

Leverage:

I am going to submit that the single largest lever you have on your financial wealth is the ability to negotiate, and the first principle of negotiation is understanding your leverage. I missed on first reading that you think that you can use this outside job opportunity to leverage your current job salary.

On the path to FATfire, I think this is incredibly important.

If I were you, my first principle would be to run the play of using this to get your salary up at your current job. This is a "must learn" experience. However, the second key of negotiation is always be willing to take the alternative path. From your posting, the alternative isn't all that bad.

If you want to understand how you get a raise in salary without burning bridges, you can PM me. However, the simple principle is:

a. You find an internal coach and "confess" the higher offer. This is not always your manager, but ideally it should be.

b. Say that you really don't want to go, but you don't see how you can turn down the offer.

c. Indicate that the new place is "really more expensive" because I don't think that if you set exceptions to double your salary will be acceptable. (Although I have personally had my salary doubled in this type situation.)

By the way, people have always sought me out as a career coach, and I have a couple of people I am mentoring now. The success rate on this is about 80%, and in today's environment, it never burns a bridge unless you have a psychotic boss or there is a strict policy on not countering, which is very rare, and you seem to indicate you might see a counter. (And you get one of these every 5 years. If you do this twice in quick succession, you'll be shown the door.)

If they don't counter, and you sound reasonable, you probably need to move. They don't appreciate you.

I consider salary negotiation a critical life skill, and I think you have to exercise this option. But again, this is your life choice, and I'm just brainstorming.

Next subject: Let's talk about hours:

1. All moguls work 70 to 100 hours.
   
2. Therefore I need to work 70 to 100 hours.
   
   If you read the literature, you will find out that most people simply are not efficient at 70 hours per week. A nice survey of the research be understood by reading this book, although it is a bit dated. The issue is that these mogul are genetically wired to work these high hours. [Often they have high degrees of conscientiousness, extraversion, and often neuroticism as measured on the big five personality test.]
   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits)
   
   I think the literature overwhelming argues these are hardwired, so you are or you aren't this way. Then again, I am a Steven Pinker fan.
   
   We see this often with engineers on a big push to finish a project, and we push the general population beyond 55 hours per week (the limit for what I think is reasonable for this class of individuals), and they start to create more bugs than forward progress. The solution was more hours, but we actually go backwards. Mind you, I want to continue to state that their are some individual that strive on high hours. Normally, you never ask them to work that much. They can't help it.
   
   The problem is that some companies and cultures make 70 hours a week a "requirement." The financial industry, residency at hospitals, and Japan come to mind. I am familiar with two of these three (hospitals/Japan), and I believe I can make a convincing argument for why their high work culture creates as many problems as it solves, but this goes beyond a post in a forum.
   
   So what happens when a "standard" person gets thrown into a high hour environment?
   
   a. They play the game. They stay at work for 70 hours, but they take a lot of meetings, goof off when nobody's looking, and suck up to the boss to play the political game. 80-90% percent of companies, this happens.
   
   b. They push to 70 hours in real work and try to get real work done, and get burnt to a crisp. A lot of people basically say "I hate my job, I'm getting out." You basically redline your car's engine, and screw up the engine block.
   
   Again, these are personal opinions from somebody in their late 50s that can FATfire with $7-8M, and there are folks that are better off than me here.
   
   However, most of these principles really came from my Dad, who FATfired with about $7-8m (today's dollars) at 62. (My wealth is separate from his, so my actual number is closer to $12M--but a big chunk is not liquid). We both went up corporate America, assign a massive amount of our good fortune to God's providence, but we also believe that there are some principles that everybody can apply.

> You're assuming the unintelligent only mate with the unintelligent. You're also not factoring correlations between intelligence, wealth and health. The intellegent are liable to have healthier children which in turn are more likely to reproduce.

I don't see how an intelligent person mating with an unintelligent one would have any impact on the trend, you'll have to explain why that assumption is an issue in further detail. The study I linked to tested for other confounding variables: it finds: "A women's educational level is the best predictor of how many children she will have." As for them being healthy, the death rates for children in developed countries is absolutely miniscule compared to the differing numbers given for birth rate by education. even if you assume every single death is to an unintelligent couple, it won't come close to making up the difference.

> Also don't forget, just because there are a lot of stupid people doesn't mean they'll be in charge.

This will likely trend off topic, but suffice it to say that in a democracy it's the job of the populace to ensure that stupid people aren't put in charge.

> What? IQs have gone up worldwide consistently in the modern era.

See my reply to someone else:

> I don't consider IQ tests to be very good measures of intelligence, especially in modern times when people's education is entirely centered around taking tests, not on applying their skills to real world situations or the act of learning, as it has been in the past. The majority of questions on IQ tests that I've seen are more "tricks" or simple knowledge than any sort of quantitative measure of learning potential, as they claim to be. People who have a natural curiosity tend to be better learners and thus know more of these "tricks" and "puzzles" so there's definitely a correlation between IQ tests and intelligence, by not by cause.

> Also worth noting, the same author for whom the effect is named after seems to have come to the same conclusion: The first thing Flynn did is disaggregate the IQ trends into their subcomponents. He observed that the improvement over time were very different depending on the domain. On arithmetic and vocabulary questions, IQs remained virtually flat for decades; Meanwhile, on 'similarities' and 'picture riddles' IQs went through the roof.

That's me, I'm an AMAB nonbinary person seeking a nonbinary physical transition. I posted a little about this seeking more perspectives here: https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/al0uoy/nonbinary_hormone_regimens/


The answer I have is that there is *very* little research on us, and what there is is patchy. There's a little more on AFAB nonbinary people, but not much. The best summary of the research so far that I've found is a chapter in the book "Genderqueer and Non-Binary Genders" (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Genderqueer-Non-Binary-Critical-Approaches-Sexuality-ebook/dp/B078BB2KLR/sr=8-1) which covers nonbinary treatment options.


There is increasing experience among trans people, though. I'm 6 months in, on 5mg Finasteride daily and Evorel 50 patches twice-weekly, and I'm about to go up to Evorel 75. I have experienced some skin softening and a major positive mood change (e.g. I could cry again after three years of not being able to, and it was good), but no body fat redistribution or breasts. My nipples feel very different this week and I'm wondering if I'm budding but it's too early to tell. My testosterone is consistently lower than a typical man's and higher than a typical woman's, and my estrogen is higher than a typical man's and lower than a typical woman's: perfect nonbinary hormone levels! As I go up to higher estrogen doses, it's likely that will shift more firmly towards levels typical for trans women, but without a more aggressive antiandrogen than finasteride my T will still by higher than usual for trans women.


There's no definite telling when changes like breast growth will be triggered. It depends on your dosage, your hormone receptivity, and loads of stuff we don't know about. You could start growing breasts on a low E dose. You could be on a high E dose and not grow breasts. Your body shape and hair growth will also be affected by how high your T is. But yes, all of these are variable. Yes, you can start on a mild antiandrogen like Finasteride, and on a very low E dosage, and see how you feel, and gradually scale up the E to see how you feel. The switch between Finasteride and other antiandrogens is probably a bit more dramatic, but still scaleable.


We're gender pirates figuring it out together. Have fun!

Perhaps, but Bruce Hood's main point in that video isn't that we typically try to maintain a self image of ourselves as a "good" person even in the face of contrary evidence but that our very sense of being a coherent, separate "self" that that has control over and chooses our thoughts and actions is actually an illusion generated by the brain through the interweaving of explanatory narratives that it creates to help it make sense of the world. He has an excellent book, The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity, that discusses how the experienced illusion of a separate, independent "self" is actually a story created throughout childhood and further elaborated during adulthood.

Gilbert Harman claims that character-based virtue ethics is deeply misguided because recent work in social psychology shows us that there is no cross-situational consistency in behavior. Lots of people take Harman's challenge quite seriously. You might also look at work by John Doris. Interestingly, studies by Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda purport to show that many individuals do display a stable and distinctive pattern of variation in their behavior. But, they claim, the key to unlocking this distinctive pattern of variation is characterizing the situation or behavior psychologically, from the perspective of the test subject, rather than nominally, from the perspective of the experimenter. Provided we characterize situations this way, the empirical findings actually suggest cross-situational consistency in behavior. The more psychologically significant features two situations share, the more consistent is the individual’s behavior across these two situations. For responses advanced by virtue ethicists who try to take advantage of these empirical findings, look at stuff by Julia Annas, Rachana Kamtekar, and Dan Russell.

I'm not sure if I can phrase it better than this list can - here's a screenshot/excerpt from a book I read recently that gives you a better of idea of healthy/mature behavior vs unhealthy/immature behavior.

http://i.imgur.com/LsJ5gdn.jpg

It's from the book The Comprehensive ENFP Survival Guide

Hope this helps give you a better idea!

Have you read The Wisdom of Enneagram and Character and Neurosis? Those are some of the introductory books to cover if you're learning enneagram. If you have read these books, which aspects of 5 vs. 1 seem confusing?

Integration/disintegration points offer a good clue to your type. 1s integrate to 7 and disintegrate to 4, but they don't have any access to type 8. In fact 1s and 8s often find themselves at odds not understanding each other's motives and behavior. While 5s will disintegrate to 7 but integrate to 8, so there is a stronger connection between 5 and 8: 5s look up to 8s as leaders which is not the case for 1s. For disintegration, to put it short, if you become emotional and mopey during your disintegration then this is likely 1->4 transition; for 5 is you feel like you lose your mental focus and become scattered jumping one thing to the next, this is a 5->7 move. Since 5s and 1s have such different patterns for integration and disintegration, it becomes easy to tell them apart.

If you want to focus on the role of special education then I would say check out The Learning Mystique by Gerald Coles and Stigma: Notes on a Spoiled Identity by Erving Goffman. The first one focuses more on the special education programs over the years while the second concentrates on what the causes and effects are of labeling someone as needing special help (or just identifying them as anything negative). Overall, the second one is a must read if you haven't yet. Sociological gold.

Lightweight multi-purpose gear like a tarp, foam pad, cordelette, tape, and knife are all extremely useful in an outdoor emergency. If you haven't already, you might want to take a WFR course. You'll gain hands-on experience using the gear mentioned above in a variety of applications.

Also, check out Laurence Gonzales' book Deep Survival. It makes the case that survival in a wilderness environment has almost nothing to do with your gear and everything to do with your mindset and skill set. In other words, the more you know, the less gear you need.

My go-to kit includes the SOL sport utility blanket, the foam pad/frame of my Cilogear 30/30 pack, a small, lightweight climbers knife, and a bare bones custom built first-aid kit from Wilderness Medical Training Center.

Hope this helps!

> Is the psychology of moral values a legit way to tell the Left and the Right apart, or are those terms really just applicable to economics?

Short answer? Yes, the psychologically of moral values can fairly reliably predict left/right orientation. You may want to read this.

I'm a big fan of the historical or diachronic approach to philosophy, so I would recommend a book like A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science for a general introduction.

My two favorite books with direct relevance to psychological methods are Cognitive Science: A Philosophical Introduction and Measuring the Mind: Conceptual Issues in Contemporary Psychometrics.

On my own current reading list are:

• Methodological Thinking in Psychology: 60 Years Gone Astray?
  
  
• Measurement in Psychology: A Critical History of a Methodological Concept
  
  
• Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science
  
  
• Handbook of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and
  
  
• Reconstructing Reality: Models, Mathematics, and Simulations

Yes, I do, because I study polarization. Why do you not believe it?

Good book in case you are actually interested and not just trolling.

https://www.amazon.com/Character-Neurosis-Integrative-Claudio-Naranjo/dp/0895560666/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526093323&sr=8-1&keywords=Character+and+neurosis

Personalitycafe forums also have pretty much the whole chapters in each type sub-section. Usually stickied. The actual book is worth it though.

http://personalitycafe.com/enneagram-personality-theory-forum/

Get the survival guide for ENFPs. It has a whole section on what adult ENFP wish their younger selfs knew.

The Comprehensive ENFP Survival Guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692532501/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_4jyWDbV0NM1G4

I'm not sure we have enough of a handle on psychology to really know who people are. You've got people like John Doris saying that psychology tells us we don't really have stable character traits - if that's true, then whether drugs bring things to the table or just reveal who we "really" are is sort of a malformed question, because there isn't anyone that we "really" are, whether on or off drugs.

Psych 101: Psychology Facts, Basics, Statistics, Tests, and More! (Adams 101) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1440543909/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_nj-3DbNFJQV73


Maybe this could help? :)

It might not be exactly what you're looking for, but you might like Psych 101 by Paul Kleinman.

Short answer: You're correct that people don't devolve into evil animals as much or as quickly as many people assume.

There is of course a threshold where things start to fall apart: people stop going out of their way to help others, then they start fighting over resources (like food at the store), nonviolent theft, violent theft, and so on. That threshold tends to happen later than people think.

There's decent research on this. You might like one of the top prepper books, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why (Amazon). It has real-world data about how things fell apart and the range of how people reacted.

Sometimes it just comes down to personal values. One family in my personal prepper group says "we'll help others until it hurts", while another says "hell no, when shtf, what's mine is mine." All are very ethical, good people.

Many preppers have a community-minded approach. See the thread from a day ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/comments/9fwsl2/bov_this_retired_marine_is_rescuing_storm_victims/

Would Goffman's Stigma fit the criteria? Not exactly the same concept, although it depends on how one defines it.

IMO, the big ones would be Measuring the Mind by Denny Borsboom, Measurement in Psychology by Joel Michell, Frontiers of Test Validity Theory by Keith Markus and Denny Borsboom, in more or less that order. However, all of these books presuppose some prior knowledge of the "canon" of methodology in the social sciences, so I'd say they're appropriate for, say, a grad student who has taken all the introductory classes, or something like that.

The book Deep Survival covers a lot of these survival situations and why certain people tend to survive them and others don't.

From:
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2019/05/25/toughest-days-my-life-eller-filled-with-emotion-after-intense-community-search/

quoting Amanda Eller's mother, Julia Eller;

> “She sat down and rested on a fallen log, just kinda meditated and took a little nap. When she got up she was disoriented about where she was and just followed her instincts trying to get back to her car,”

And there you have it - disconnection from the real world into a altered mental state, followed by a flawed instinctive reaction;

> 'I wanted to go back the way I'd come, but my gut was leading me another way — and I have a very strong gut instinct.

One can list all the useful things one might or might not carry, wonder why some runners and casual hikers don't prepare for the worst, but key here (actually the keys were left at the car too ...!) was that the brain wasn't given a chance to do its job, orient back into the real world again, and make appropriate decisions.

Laurence Gonzales-Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

https://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-ENFP-Survival-Guide/dp/0692532501/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549821875&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=comprehensive+enfp+survival+guide&dpPl=1&dpID=41bJhxG2IAL&ref=plSrch

In Over Our Heads

http://bookzz.org/book/684726/6f6e04

http://www.amazon.com/Stigma-Notes-Management-Spoiled-Identity/dp/0671622447/

Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393353710/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_P58VBb623H3AT

It's not simply ad hominem; his interpretation of facts has been disputed. The findings and ideas -- not just the man -- are controversial. Here are some good places to start for people who want to learn more. (The links with plus signs are books, not full texts online.)

An overview

Another overview++

A summary & review of three notable books on the subject

The Bell Curve++

The Flynn Effect++

IQ Tests

Race

This is the most common criticism of the book, but I found it very realistic, after reading Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.

It goes into a bunch of case studies of people in survival situations, from a perspective of psychology and neuroscience. One of the key attributes of the people who survived was exactly the sort of upbeat, can-do attitude that Watney has. The people who get depressed generally don't make it.

Also it's worth keeping in mind that The Martian is Watney's journal entries. You don't have to necessarily think of it as an accurate moment-by-moment portrayal of his mental state; by the time he gets around to writing, he's usually shrugged off the despair. That's what he has to do, to survive.