Subliminal

by Mlodinow, Leonard

• ISBN13: 9780307378217
• ISBN10: 0307378217
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-04-24
• Publisher: Pantheon

Summary

From the best-selling author of The Drunkard's Walkand coauthor of The Grand Design(with Stephen Hawking) and War of the Worldviews(with Deepak Chopra) comes a fascinating, illuminating examination of the profound ways in which the unconscious mind shapes our lives. Every aspect of our mental lives plays out in two versions: one conscious, which we are constantly aware of, and the other unconscious, which remains hidden from us. Over the past two decades researchers have developed remarkable new tools for probing the unconscious, or subliminal, workings of the mind. This explosion of research has led to a sea change in our understanding of how the mind affects the way we live. As a result, scientists are becoming increasingly convinced that how we experience the world--our perception, behavior, memory, and social judgment--is largely driven by the mind's subliminal processes and not by the conscious ones, as we have long believed. Employing his trademark lucid, accessible explanations of the most obscure scientific subjects, Leonard Mlodinow unravels the complexities of the subliminal mind and reveals its influence on how we act with friends and strangers, spouses and coworkers. Like The Drunkard's Walk, Subliminalwill increase our understanding of how the human mind works, and will change our view of ourselves, of the world around us, and of how we interact with that world. From the Hardcover edition.

Table of Contents

Prologue	p. 3
The Two-Tiered Brain
The New Unconscious	p. 11
The hidden role of our subliminal selves … what it means when you don't call your mother
Senses Plus Mind Equals Reality	p. 30
The two-tier system of the brain … how you can see something without knowing it
Remembering and Forgetting	p. 52
How the brain builds memories … why we sometimes remember what never happened
The Importance of Being Social	p. 79
The fundamental role of human social character… why Tylenol can mend a broken heart
The Social Unconscious
Reading People	p. 107
How we communicate without speaking … how to know who's the boss by watching her eyes
Judging People by Their Covers	p. 126
What we read into looks, voice, and touch … how to win voters, attract a date, or beguile a female cowbird
Sorting People and Things	p. 145
Why we categorize things and stereotype people … what Lincoln, Gandhi, and Che Guevara had in common
In-Groups and Out-Groups	p. 161
The dynamics of us and them … the science behind Lord of the Flies
Feelings	p. 176
The nature of emotions … why the prospect of falling hundreds of feet onto large boulders has the same effect as a flirtatious smile and a black silk nightgown
Self	p. 196
How our ego defends its honor… why schedules are overly optimistic and failed CEOs feel they deserve golden parachutes
Acknowledgments	p. 221
Notes	p. 223
Index	p. 249
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

  

From the Hardcover edition.