Download or read book The Paradox of Choice written by Barry Schwartz and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.

Download or read book A Manual of Dynamic Play Therapy written by Dennis McCarthy and published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. This book was released on 2012-02-15 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Children will experience natural growth and change throughout their lives. Play, by its very nature, always results in things falling apart, often literally, and children generally find satisfaction in this process of collapse and renewal. This book harnesses the power of the reorganizing process to elicit positive and profound change in children dealing with social, neurological, developmental, health and family issues. The author clarifies the theory behind this innovative play therapy approach, and explains its practical application to a full spectrum of client needs, using inspirational, real-life anecdotes as examples. He also describes the importance of using symbols in play therapy and focuses on ways to enable children to act out their internal aggression in a safe and healthy manner. This will be essential reading for play therapists and other professionals working therapeutically with children and their families.

Download or read book The Chimp Paradox written by Steve Peters and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-05-30 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Your inner Chimp can be your best friend or your worst enemy...this is the Chimp Paradox Do you sabotage your own happiness and success? Are you struggling to make sense of yourself? Do your emotions sometimes dictate your life? Dr. Steve Peters explains that we all have a being within our minds that can wreak havoc on every aspect of our lives—be it business or personal. He calls this being "the chimp," and it can work either for you or against you. The challenge comes when we try to tame the chimp, and persuade it to do our bidding. The Chimp Paradox contains an incredibly powerful mind management model that can help you be happier and healthier, increase your confidence, and become a more successful person. This book will help you to: —Recognize how your mind is working —Understand and manage your emotions and thoughts —Manage yourself and become the person you would like to be Dr. Peters explains the struggle that takes place within your mind and then shows you how to apply this understanding. Once you're armed with this new knowledge, you will be able to utilize your chimp for good, rather than letting your chimp run rampant with its own agenda.

Download or read book The Passion Paradox written by Brad Stulberg and published by Rodale Books. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The coauthors of the bestselling Peak Performance dive into the fascinating science behind passion, showing how it can lead to a rich and meaningful life while also illuminating the ways in which it is a double-edged sword. Here’s how to cultivate a passion that will take you to great heights—while minimizing the risk of an equally great fall. Common advice is to find and follow your passion. A life of passion is a good life, or so we are told. But it's not that simple. Rarely is passion something that you just stumble upon, and the same drive that fuels breakthroughs—whether they're athletic, scientific, entrepreneurial, or artistic—can be every bit as destructive as it is productive. Yes, passion can be a wonderful gift, but only if you know how to channel it. If you're not careful, passion can become an awful curse, leading to endless seeking, suffering, and burnout. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness once again team up, this time to demystify passion, showing readers how they can find and cultivate their passion, sustainably harness its power, and avoid its dangers. They ultimately argue that passion and balance--that other virtue touted by our culture--are incompatible, and that to find your passion, you must lose balance. And that's not always a bad thing. They show readers how to develop the right kind of passion, the kind that lets you achieve great things without ruining your life. Swift, compact, and powerful, this thought-provoking book combines captivating stories of extraordinarily passionate individuals with the latest science on the biological and psychological factors that give rise to—and every bit as important, sustain—passion.

Download or read book The Paradox of Generosity written by Christian Smith and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Paradox of Generosity, Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson offer vital insight into how American adults conceive of and demonstrate generosity. Focusing not only on financial giving but on the many diverse forms philanthropy can take, they show the impact--both positive and negative--that giving has on individuals.

Download or read book The Time Paradox written by Philip Zimbardo and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Lucifer Effect comes a breakthrough book that draws on thirty years of pioneering research to reveal, for the first time, how your individual time perspective shapes your life and is shaped by the world around you. This is the first paradox of time: Your attitudes toward time have a profound impact on your life and world, yet you seldom recognize it. Our goal is to help you reclaim yesterday, enjoy today, and master tomorrow with new ways of seeing and working with your past, present, and future. Just as Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences permanently altered our understanding of intelligence and Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink gave us an appreciation for the adaptive unconscious, Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd’s new book changes the way we think about and experience time. It will give you new insights into how family conflicts can be resolved by ways to enhance your sexuality and sensuality, and mindsets for becoming more successful in business and happier in your life. Based on the latest psychological research, The Time Paradox is both a "big think" guide for living in the twenty-first century and one of those rare self-help books that really does have the power to improve lives.

Download or read book Humanness and Dehumanization written by Paul G. Bain and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2013-10-30 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to be human? Why do people dehumanize others (and sometimes themselves)? These questions have only recently begun to be investigated in earnest within psychology. This volume presents the latest thinking about these and related questions from research leaders in the field of humanness and dehumanization in social psychology and related disciplines. Contributions provide new insights into the history of dehumanization, its different types, and new theories are proposed for when and why dehumanization occurs. While people’s views about what humanness is, and who has it, have long been known as important in understanding ethnic conflict, contributors demonstrate its relevance in other domains, including medical practice, policing, gender relations, and our relationship with the natural environment. Cultural differences and similarities in beliefs about humanness are explored, along with strategies to overcome dehumanization. In highlighting emerging ideas and theoretical perspectives, describing current theoretical issues and controversies and ways to resolve them, and in extending research to new areas, this volume will influence research on humanness and dehumanization for many years.

Download or read book The Paradox of Power and Weakness written by George Kunz and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an alternative paradigm for psychology, one that reflects Levinas's criticism of a self-centered notion of identity. Reveals the secret of an "authentic" altruism through a phenomenology of both power and weakness, and of the paradoxes of the weakness of power and the power of weakness.

Download or read book The Paradox of Success written by John R. O'Neil and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: O'Neil has had a long career in business & educational counselling. The Paradox of Success gives managers and leaders a clear direction to win at work and life.

Download or read book Self Handicapping written by Raymond L. Higgins and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of self-handicapping can be legitimately anchored in a vari ety of intellectual contexts, some old and some newer. As this volume reminds us, Alfred Adler was perhaps the first to articulate the signifi cance of various self-defeating claims and gestures for protecting the self concept. Thus the apparent paradox of "defeat" in the interests of "pro tection. " More recently (but still more than 30 years ago), Heider's "naive psychology" added attributional rhetoric to the description of self-defeat ing strategies. While predominantly cognitive in its thrust, the attribu tional approach incorporated several motivational influences-especially those involving egocentric concerns. Heider hardly violated our common sense when he suggested that people are inclined to attribute their performances in a self-serving manner: the good things I caused; the bad things were forced upon me. The notion of self-handicapping strategies, proposed by Berglas and myself a little more than a decade ago, capitalized on these homely truths while adding a particular proactive twist. We not only make ex cuses for our blunders; we plan our engagements and our situational choices so that self-protective excuses are unnecessary. In doing so, we use our attributional understanding to arrange things so that flawed and failing performances will not be interpreted in ways that threaten our self-esteem.

Download or read book The Paradox of Scale written by Cristina M. Balboa and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of why NGOs often experience difficulty creating lasting change, with case studies of transnational conservation organizations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Why do nongovernmental organizations face difficulty creating lasting change? How can they be more effective? In this book, Cristina Balboa examines NGO authority, capacity, and accountability to propose that a “paradox of scale” is a primary barrier to NGO effectiveness. This paradox—when what gives an NGO authority on one scale also weakens its authority on another scale—helps explain how NGOs can be seen as an authority on particular causes on a global scale, but then fail to effect change at the local level. Drawing on case studies of transnational conservation organizations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, The Paradox of Scale explores how NGOs build, maintain, and lose authority over time. Balboa sets a new research agenda for the study of governance, offering practical concepts and analysis to help NGO practitioners. She introduces the concept of authority as a form of legitimated power, explaining why it is necessary for NGOs to build authority at multiple scales when they create, implement, or enforce rules. Examining the experiences of Conservation International in Papua New Guinea, International Marinelife Alliance in the Philippines, and the Community Conservation Network in Palau, Balboa explains how a paradox of scale can develop even for those NGOs that seem powerful and effective. Interdisciplinary in its approach, The Paradox of Scaleoffers guidance for interpreting the actions and pressures accompanying work with NGOs, showing why even the most authoritative NGOs often struggle to make a lasting impact.

Download or read book The Paradox of Generosity written by Christian Smith and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Determining why, when, and to whom people feel compelled to be generous affords invaluable insight into positive and problematic ways of life. Organ donation, volunteering, and the funding of charities can all be illuminated by sociological and psychological perspectives on how American adults conceive of and demonstrate generosity. Focusing not only on financial giving but on the many diverse forms generosity can take, Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson show the deep impact-usually good, sometimes destructive-that giving has on individuals. The Paradox of Generosity is the first study to make use of the cutting-edge empirical data collected in Smith's groundbreaking, multidisciplinary, five-year Science of Generosity Initiative. It draws on an extensive survey of 2,000 Americans, more than sixty in-depth interviews with individuals across twelve states, and analysis of over 1,000 photographs and other visual materials. This wealth of evidence reveals a consistent link between demonstrating generosity and leading a better life: more generous people are happier, suffer fewer illnesses and injuries, live with a greater sense of purpose, and experience less depression. Smith and Davidson also show, however, that to achieve a better life a person must practice generosity regularly-random acts of kindness are not enough. Offering a wide range of vividly illustrative case studies, this volume will be a crucial resource for anyone seeking to understand the true impact and meaning of generosity.

Download or read book The Empowerment Paradox Seven Vital Virtues to Turn Struggle Into Strength written by Ben Woodward and published by Lioncrest Publishing. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adversity comes to all of us in ways we may not expect or choose. Often, it is unwanted and untimely. And still it boldly demands something of us. A response. Perhaps it's the pain of sickness, death, or simply getting older. Maybe it's the struggle of constant change, or the suffering of disillusionment that comes with life and its many losses and limitations. However it comes, Ben reveals how such experiences can be transformed into a catalyst for magnificent joy and a profound sense of personal empowerment and strength. The Empowerment Paradox shows you how to turn life's roadblocks and stumbling blocks into robust building blocks. It reveals a powerful and desperately needed series of vital virtues to strengthen your emotional and mental center. These virtues, when developed, provide clarity and understanding for dealing with the complexities of life. They offer the power you need to rise up and become the best version of yourself. Suffering, struggle, and adversity all offer us an opportunity-this book shows you how to seize it.

Download or read book The Paradox of Success written by Tamsen E. Taylor, Ph.D. and published by Tamsen Connects. This book was released on 2022-06-25 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If your life is full but you feel empty, you’re experiencing The Paradox of Success! If you're tired of living life by someone else's rules, use the wisdom and questions in this book to create your own personal definition of success. Creating your own personal definition of success will allow you to: - make better decisions more quickly and easily, - create and nurture a solid sense of self-worth, and - live a life deeply connected to your purpose. Following the path in this book will eliminate the need to chase the unicorn of “work-life balance”. You’ll be able to make decisions so that you’re in the right place, at the right time, doing the right things for you and the people who mean the most.

Download or read book Analysing Media Discourses written by John E. Richardson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The continual growth in the significance of mass-mediated communication makes it essential that we are able to reflect upon and critically appreciate the semiotic processes that are involved in their impact upon social and cultural life. This edited collection showcases a range of diverse approaches to the analysis of various forms of mediated communications, including varying degrees of attention to their associated textual, discursive and social practices. Individual contributions are devoted to exploring, in analytical depth, multiple dimensions of each of the following media: newspaper articles, magazines (both historical advertising and contemporary editorial discourse), television (both situation comedy and "reality" TV programmes), books (covers and content in two genres), political leaflets, and a flight simulation computer game. The collection will be an important resource for scholars and students within disciplines including communication studies, sociology, media studies, cultural studies, discourse studies, and journalism studies. This book was published as a special issue of Social Semiotics.

Download or read book Paradox in the Contrivance of Human Development written by Robert Kowalski and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2014-10-25 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paradox in the Contrivance of Human Development This book crosses disciplinary boundaries in a way that few books on human development do. Its strengths come from the fresh perspectives which emerge from the diverse fields that the author draws upon (e.g. Central Banking; Child Protection; Environment; Extension; Food Security; SMEs; Water and Sanitation to name a few). It is an anthology of the authors recently published works with a leavening of contemporary material. The objective is to draw this rich material into a coherent whole that will meet the needs and interests of professionals, students and lay-enthusiasts alike. The authors insights come from his extensive experience juxtaposed with an academic perspective and educative engagement. This experience has been gained over many years working with various international development agencies from multilateral and bilateral donors to International Financial Institutions, UN agencies, non-government organisations, national and local institutions. The supportive, underpinning scholarship is both eclectic and thoroughgoing, augmenting essays on anthropology, economics, environment, management, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. The end result is a unique exploration of the issues that confront the theory and practice of human development.

Download or read book Plagues and the Paradox of Progress written by Thomas J. Bollyky and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why the news about the global decline of infectious diseases is not all good. Plagues and parasites have played a central role in world affairs, shaping the evolution of the modern state, the growth of cities, and the disparate fortunes of national economies. This book tells that story, but it is not about the resurgence of pestilence. It is the story of its decline. For the first time in recorded history, virus, bacteria, and other infectious diseases are not the leading cause of death or disability in any region of the world. People are living longer, and fewer mothers are giving birth to many children in the hopes that some might survive. And yet, the news is not all good. Recent reductions in infectious disease have not been accompanied by the same improvements in income, job opportunities, and governance that occurred with these changes in wealthier countries decades ago. There have also been unintended consequences. In this book, Thomas Bollyky explores the paradox in our fight against infectious disease: the world is getting healthier in ways that should make us worry. Bollyky interweaves a grand historical narrative about the rise and fall of plagues in human societies with contemporary case studies of the consequences. Bollyky visits Dhaka—one of the most densely populated places on the planet—to show how low-cost health tools helped enable the phenomenon of poor world megacities. He visits China and Kenya to illustrate how dramatic declines in plagues have affected national economies. Bollyky traces the role of infectious disease in the migrations from Ireland before the potato famine and to Europe from Africa and elsewhere today. Historic health achievements are remaking a world that is both worrisome and full of opportunities. Whether the peril or promise of that progress prevails, Bollyky explains, depends on what we do next. A Council on Foreign Relations Book