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it was the social measures that most influenced your chances of surviving,
Robin Dunbar • Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships
emotional distress
Kevin Dutton • The Wisdom of Psychopaths
Alongside these influences is another equally important pillar: our professional identity. In both cases, relationships with the other determine our self-respect. In the best-case scenario, mastery of professional skills is added to the mix. Our self-image and sense of wellbeing are greatly affected by our workplace and our relationship with collea
... See morePaul Verhaeghe • What About Me?: The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society
Patients in therapy all begin by protesting, “I want to be good.” If they cannot accomplish this, it is only because they are “inadequate,” can’t control themselves, are too anxious, or suffer from unconscious impulses. Being neurotic is being able to act badly without feeling responsible for what you do. The therapist must try to help the patient
... See morethe key is to find a good balance between the individual and the group, between individual creativity and productive co-operation.
Paul Verhaeghe • What About Me?: The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society
This, then, is the key sleight-of-hand at the heart of our psychosocial problems: We pretend we’re in charge, both to others and even to ourselves, but we’re less in charge than we think. We pose as privileged insiders, when in fact we’re often making the same kind of educated guesses that any informed outsider could make. We claim to know our own
... See moreRobin Hanson • The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
But nothing disturbs the feeling of specialness like the presence of other human beings feeling identically special.
Jonathan Franzen • Freedom: A Novel
One’s reputation with others, and with themselves (self-esteem), is shaped primarily by their own individual attributes and accomplishments, not by nourishing an enduring web of inherited ties that are governed by a complex set of relationship-specific social norms.8
Joseph Henrich • The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
life. He found that the most important childhood risk factors predicting convictions for violent behaviour later in life were: high risk-taking, lower than average IQ (especially verbal IQ), a broken family background, harsh parental discipline, hyperactivity (such as ADHD), and large family size.