(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best psychology books

>instinctual drives that are more a set of goals than they are behaviors. We instinctively enjoy sex and want to survive, but the behaviors we engage in to fulfill those goals vary in every which way

That's an apt description. But the behaviors we engage in to fulfill those goals don't vary randomly. Some of them consistently vary with regard to sex. Again you reference "hard coded" behaviors, which is a biological determinist position. No scientists are talking about 'hard coded,' and innate doesn't mean 'hard coded.' You're oversimplifying the issues yourself, and accusing an entire branch of science of not getting it. But the science is aware of the complexities. It's possible for innate proclivities to be enormously complex and still innate; take language, as an obvious example.

As for parental investment theory, you still haven't provided any examples of the many counterexamples that scientists ignore. I'm unaware of them, and I don't think you'll find any. Likewise for certain tendencies that exist across cultures. The countless tribes certainly didn't share all of our social structure, but some social institutions are as far as we know ubiquitous. Some of the behavioral differences between the genders span age groups and cultures.

As far as what the proper arguments are, and how these studies can be attempted... it's really complicated. I can leave a few papers that if you're interested in, will do a much better job of explaining it. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm just dumping an 'educate yourself' link on you, but I think these papers are representative, and I honestly think that if you read through them without discounting the possibility that biology has these affects, you'll find that the field is not as insane as it can be portrayed.

[This is a good starting point for an accurate summary of an evopsych theory we discussed](
http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165805.pdf)

The book Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities is a very neutral and comprehensive source on what we know about the differences between men and women

More specifically, on the intersection of feminism and science:

This is an excellent paper, and while it likely represents your position much more than mine, I think it presents a good argument that mirrors some of what we discussed


The book Who's Afraid of Charles Darwin and a critique called "more misuses of evolutionary psychology" unfortunately behind a paywall.

This last one is a very on topic; it is a response to social constructionist critiques of EP and a summary of recent debates.
http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/196924.pdf

Psychologists who study why you think and act the way you do from an evolutionary point of view. For example, why do so many people have no problem vegetating in front of a TV movie, but balk at reading a richer book that the movie is based on?

That's because apparently the primate part of your mind subtly rewards you for seeking new information, but it only recognizes new visual stimulus. Reading a book involves the more rational and linguistic parts of your brain (to read stuff) that evolved later, and don't issue the same level of reward. Thus, TV == fun, book == boring.

If that sort of stuff interests you, I highly recommend this book; its non-technical, and an easy read:

http://www.amazon.com/Kluge-Haphazard-Construction-Human-Mind/dp/0618879641

Texas License To Carry (LTC).

First, I learned my state's laws. Then I carried.

Do you mean comfortable carrying a gun or do you mean comfortable with shooting a person in self defense? Two very different things. The former came naturally for me. The latter I learned in 1973 at Fort Leonard Wood, MO.

For the former, get good training in shooting and knowing the law. For the Law of Self Defense, see lawofselfdefense.com . For the latter, read LTC (Ret) Dave Grossman's On Combat and On Killing.
https://www.amazon.com/Combat-Psychology-Physiology-Deadly-Conflict/dp/B00FJWP7MK/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=grossman&qid=1573188536&sr=8-3

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Cost-Learning-Society/dp/0316040932/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=grossman&qid=1573188563&sr=8-5

Ulan is bang on! Have you heard of "mental rehearsals"? You think about the optimal outcome and then rehearse the actions required in your mind. This is highly effective (it's a less spiritual wankiness version of "the Secret" i guess).

I used to mentally rehearse every mission when I in the army. from Physical Fitness tests, to the range, to flights.

Read Warrior Mindset
https://www.amazon.com/Warrior-Mindset-Toughness-Nations-Peacekeepers-ebook/dp/B06XCX2GVY/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=bulletproof+mind&qid=1555418814&s=gateway&sr=8-5

Well, yes, it kinda is. No, not every sex act is about procreation - far from it, in fact. But humanity's sexual urges (and those of other sexual species, as well) are based on procreation. I mean, listen, you tell me: there are, what, multi-billion-dollar industries devoted to allowing women to appear as if they're in their mid-twenties, or as close to that as possible - why, if attractiveness (and especially sexual attractiveness) had nothing to do with reproduction, would that be the case?

And further: If sex wasn't at some level "about" procreation, or if rape wasn't at some level "about" sex, why would we see a vastly disproportionate number of female rape victims being within the most fertile ages? When a large portion of the population is in their 40s, 50s, 60s, etc., why wouldn't women in those age groups make up an equally large portion of female rape victims?

Again, there is a disconnect between sex and reproduction, especially with the advent of birth control. When most people have sex, most of the time, procreation is not the goal, or even something they're thinking about. But the idea that our behaviors - the universal ones, that are ingrained in our species - are not implicitly related to reproductive success is.. well, it's a very silly claim, to be honest.

(To preemptively clarify: I agree wholeheartedly with Thornhill and Palmer, who have somewhat controversially argued that rape is a behavior with roots in our evolutionary history. But before you attack me on that basis, let me be perfectly clear: doing so commits the naturalistic fallacy, attempting to derive an ought from an is - or rather, implying that an "ought" statement that is objectionable follows from the "is" statement that I am making. Nothing could be further from the truth. To say that something is "natural" is not to say that it is moral, ethical, or acceptable. Humans are unique in our ability to critically reason about our behaviors and decide for ourselves whether or not to accept the behaviors that natural selection has endowed us with.)

A friend lent me "How the Mind Works" by Stephen Pinker---I liked some of the ideas so much that I went and bought Human Evolutionary Psychology, a very easy-to-read textbook. That helped in clearing up some of the over simplifications and exaggerations that Pinker made.

LessWrong is a community where I learned about heuristics and biases. They approach it from the perspective of learning about the shortcuts our brains make and how we can overcome them to make better decisions.
Here are a couple links:
Planning Fallacy

Hindsight Bias

We change our minds less often than we think


If you are in for a LOT of reading I highly recommend the rest of the Sequences, but that is a little off-topic from what you asked. (These changed my life and way of thinking so I can't help but ship them.)

Bro, first of all stop with that "I hate myself" shit. Dopamine is the thing in EVERY human being, which creates a craving and desire for everything providing a dopamine spike, even though that thing is totally against your moral standards. It's the "fuck it, just go get it" neurotransmitter and the way EVERY human brain works.

Evolution has formed us in a way that we always strive for progression, just because this means a higher chance of surviving. As you started watching porn, even the softest videos provided a high dopamine spike just because your brain didn't even know about this kind of stimulus. But with time, your dopamine receptors got more and more desensitized, leading to you searching for novelty in porn just to get the same spike as when you started watching. Novelty means a new stimulus. The reasons why certain people may stop their journey at hardcore bondage porn and others get thoughts as you do can vary. But those reasons are the same which made you the person YOU are. It can be because of the genetical heritage of your anchestors, the way you were raised as a kid or the circumstances and people you got with during life. Those are the 3 determinisms Freud talked about. Things which are NOT in your power.

What I'm trying to point out is that there is totally NOTHING wrong with you, if I was born, raised and living the exact life that you did, i would be the same as you. That's the reason why the greatest spiritual leaders like Ghandi and else always told us not to judge people by any means, even a rapist. The one who knows, he understands.

What you have to do now is think about yourself rational rather than emotional. Get yourself some knowledge about sensitization of dopamine receptors. Heal your brain. Google about dopamine fasting.

Here is a book about the term called "supernormal stimuli", which helps understanding why people in modern civilization act in the way they do. There is a great chapter on porn
Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose https://www.amazon.de/dp/039306848X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_.qwXCbTQGT4QK

And watch this, too
https://youtu.be/wSF82AwSDiU

It's not enough and it never will be...Our patients demand perfection and in many ways deserve it, but that's not reality. Reality is that we are imperfect persons working in an imperfect system, making choices with imperfect information, all in the hope that we are healing/helping imperfect patients. You must draw a line between your work and your life otherwise the negativity and toxicity of the work will taint the rest of your life. Unfortunately there aren't any books that talk about managing the emotional stress you will be exposed to in healthcare. I've found that books about dealing with the stress of law enforcement are a good analog.


I recommend:

Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement: A guide for officers and their families

and
Warrior Mindset: Mental Toughness Skills for a Nation's Peacekeepers


Best wishes; hope you find the strength and balance you're looking for.

>Animals, without a mind or conciousness, cannot rape as they do not know what that means.

This is faulty reasoning. Regardless of whether they have a moral system that considers it wrong, they do have both consensual and non-consensual sex.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sexual_behavior#Coercive_sex

Dolphins, elephants, ducks and geese have been documented doing this.

http://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Rape-Biological-Coercion/dp/0262201259

Rape carries a reproductive advantage, allowing the rapist to pass on their genes, while not investing any effort in caring for the offspring, and bypassing the female's selection process which would normally let her pick the most suitable male.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociobiological_theories_of_rape

Stating that meat eating is natural is not an ethical justification. It's a behavior which has significant negative consequences, and is not necessary to living a healthy and rewarding life. It's a luxury done to satisfy a preferred taste.

I'm biased because this book was written by my aunt and uncle, but I would recommend Evolutionary Psychology: The Ultimate Origins of Human Behavior.

While not 100% on topic here I found this book an interesting and related take on what animals will and won't attend to.

https://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848X

I know such people exist. I just don't understand how their heads don't physically explode from the hypocrisy. It must be our Kluge-y brains that allow compartmentalization of knowledge.

Seriously though, I can strongly recommend the book Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology by Prof. Robert C. Richardson. It's a thorough, good-faith, and apolitical dissection of how evolutionary psychology as a field lacks evidence and rigorous methodology: https://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Psychology-Maladapted-Life-Mind/dp/0262514214

Short answer: don't.

EP has serious issues as a science. For why, I refer you to:

http://www.amazon.com/Adapting-Minds-Evolutionary-Psychology-Persistent/dp/0262025795

and:

http://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Psychology-Maladapted-Life-Mind/dp/0262182602

You would be surprised.

Or you can read the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/B0057DC3VY

Looking for the pdf for this book Foundations of Neural Development, by S. Marc Breedlove

https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Neural-Development-Marc-Breedlove/dp/1605355798

10$ paypal

Looking for the pdf for this book
Foundations of Neural Development, by S. Marc Breedlove
https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Neural-Development-Marc-Breedlove/dp/1605355798

That's how Nature works in general, and those Stimuli can be hacked, and they are hacked everyday.

You'll enjoy this book:


https://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848X

Here's a book which disagrees with this hypothesis:

https://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Rape-Biological-Coercion/dp/0262700832

And another which claims that the feminist approach has actually hindered police investigations:

https://www.amazon.com/Galileos-Middle-Finger-Heretics-Activists/dp/0143108115/

I don't know enough to say which view is correct.

Well I gave you a link. I suppose it flew over your head because:

> requires the neural network itself to grow

That's not how a brain works. Where did you hear about a neural network, because you seem a little confused about what a neural network is. A neural network is a computer model based on how a brain might form ideas. It is not a human brain.

When you say "Brain cells are like that to network & become able to recognize faces, etc." (sic) it's hard to tell what you are saying because you are so inarticulate. I suppose you are trying to make some statement on how neural pathways are formed?

Your statement doesn't take into account how hormones like adrenaline, testosterone or estrogen influence the formation of neural pathways. It doesn't talk about dopaminergic projections that control the formation of neural pathways based on pre-existing inherited structure.

Neural pathways are guided by the design of the brain itself. For example Brocca's area in the brain is where the human brain conjugates language. In your simplistic statement -there would be no need for the brain to compartmentalize because apparently there is no pre-existing influence of genes on brain development.

I've provided several links now.

> where have YOU been getting your information from?

I already gave you several links. It's obvious that you don't know anything about this. So here's several books that you should read before you show your general ignorance of the topic:

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Brain-Book-Rita-Carter/dp/1465416021/

http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Human-Behavior-Darwinian-Perspectives/dp/0262533049


http://www.amazon.com/Not-Genes-Alone-Transformed-Evolution/dp/0226712125/

https://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Rape-Biological-Coercion/dp/0262700832

Your argument was that rape is not natural in mammals with higher order brain functions. You should provide evidence to support your claim. I have provided evidence for my original claim.

There's a really interesting book I read a while back called Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose. It talks a lot about sexual instincts in a few of its chapters.

It mentions a study where scientists wanted to test the sexual instincts of turkeys. They made a life-like dummy of a female turkey, and the male turkeys fucked it. Then they removed a bunch of the feathers and distinguishing features, and the turkeys still fucked it. They kept removing features of the dummy, and the turkeys kept fucking it. Eventually it was pretty much just a stick attached to a platform, and still the turkeys fucked it.

Humans are more like that than we're willing to admit.

First off, don't automatically assume everyone critical of the progressive politcal agenda is a right-wing youtube-troll. You can read all the Buzzfeed articles you want, I won't hold it against you. Alright, let's hit it!

> the goal of progressive politics is equal opportunity to attain the same economic, societal and political power. The same CV should get the same proportion of callbacks and the same wages no matter what name is on it. Men in power should not be able to rape dozens of women and avoid consequences.

Equal opportunities are mostly the reality. Women in their early twenties out-perform men. Obviously some companies will be cautious hiring women that are about to have babies, but there are discrimination laws for that. I'm aware of the studies that shows discrimination happens in regard to what name you have. This is a problem.
Pay gap is a myth. Rape is a whole other issue.

> Coal mining isn't a position of economic, societal and political power.

I'm not sure if I agree with you that the progressive goal is power-balance. Affirmative action is utilized all over the board, not just for positions of power.

> If you think feminism is too focused on rich white women, read up on intersectional feminism. This is precisely the issue that concept addresses.

I'm aware of it. I haven't seen that it is changing the dynamics much. Isn't it basically feminism for black women?

> Your view of gender studies come from e. g. YouTube videos and cherry-picked list articles. It is a distorted view. If I had done the same by portraying biomedical research as homeopathy and reiki (there are hundreds of such shitty "studies"), you would surely have explained how skewed such a view was. I suggest reading more empirical sociology research instead. I have given some examples so far, but you can start with this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2915460/

There is real conflict between the dogmas of feminism aka gender studies and biology-based science. I recommend this book if you're interested.

> Popular culture is not science. Compare any scientific topic you feel comfortable with and then look at how it is portrayed in popular culture. Cancer biology, biotech agriculture, immunology, nutrition etc. are all butchered by pop culture and does not give you a reasonable or evidence-based view of the research field. Thus, you should accept the same conclusion for e. g. gender studies or empirical sociology.

Well you're right about that, but you're missing my point. The "tabula-rasa"-view is the predominant narrative among liberals/progressive whom basically run the whole media

> It isn't the skin color of white people that are the problem. The problem is that, on average, some groups get benefits they do not deserve and some other groups get punishments they do not deserve had we based our conclusions purely on meritocracy. These advantages are not randomly distributed but tend to aggregate among those who already sits on most economic, political and societal power. The punishments tend to aggregate among those who have the least and are already treated the worst.

Interesting to see how you use the words "benefits" and "punishment". It's like there was some invincible moral forces fucking things up. And by the way, asian men are the most paid ethnic group. I guess it's reversed racism making that happen.

> Look at this meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials on CV studies. Why do you think that the exact same CV gets 36% more callbacks if there is a white-sounding name on it? http://www.pnas.org/content/114/41/10870.full, these facts are not questionable.

Agree. It's a problem. And I've never denied it either.

https://www.amazon.com/Warrior-Mindset-Toughness-Nations-Peacekeepers-ebook/dp/B06XCX2GVY/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=mental+toughness+grossman&qid=1569054155&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Just a disclaimer, i havent finished it myself yet, hell i've barely gotten started. But i went for this one cause grossman was involved. Lt Col Dave Grossman is well known (with high status) for his books On Combat and On Killing.

There is an evolutionary explanation to it (and there is a book on it: http://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Rape-Biological-Coercion/dp/0262700832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406448750&sr=8-1&keywords=natural+history+of+rape ). Rape hurts a woman psychologically, because in the past it meant involuntarily giving up her mate choice and 9 months of her time and energy through pregnancy. And for men, being raped by a man hurts psychologically, because it reduces their status.

I disagree. I think that this interpretation is a case of presentism. Slavery was not always wrong, in fact some people saw setting slaves free immoral and not having slaves at all was an affront to the proper way of life. Even more extreme rape, humanities development and survival was at one time (I can't find the right word here) "dependent" on rape.

I do agree slavery and rape are wrong but only because of the Moral context of the era and society I am apart of. Were I a prehistoric human neither would strike me as morally wrong but perhaps not going on a hunt with the other men would be. I am not an professional anthropologist so forgive the poor example just think off the top of my head.