100 books like The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations

This book gives an excellent overview of Freud’s thoughts about human psychology, and also shows the way he thought. Freud’s brilliance shines through. I hasten to say most, though not by any means all of his hypotheses are wrong. I read this book at 15 and knew when I finished it I was going to be a psychologist. Some of my work gives strong support to a few of his hypotheses about the unconscious. Ironically, Freud himself didn’t believe his ideas could be tested by psychology experiments.

A remarkably charming book by a physicist who was a student of Hans Bethe. It shows the power and elegance of a scientific approach to matters that one might think would not be susceptible to scientific research.

I first read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions when I was in college many (many) years ago, and it fundamentally changed the way I think about organizational change and innovation. 

Written by a physicist, the book is about the philosophy and history of science and how we make advances in knowledge. Kuhn argues, and provides plenty of examples, of how science isn’t just the slow accumulation of data, but is actually influenced by “paradigms” that help us make sense of the data. Every so often however data emerges that doesn’t fit the paradigm. 

At first this kind of anomalous data is disregarded or its integrity is questioned. Eventually, after much struggle, the data that “doesn’t fit” becomes the starting point for a new and revolutionary paradigm which changes how we see the world.

OK, this sounds pretty theoretical. But think about organizations and simplicity. Many of our standard organizational practices… show more.

The book shows some of the remarkable ways that Eastern and Western thought differs. I read the book 10 years before a brilliant Chinese student named Kaiping Peng came to work with me and told me right off the bat that I thought linearly and logically and he thought non-linearly and dialectically. That sounded like an exaggeration, but Nakamura’s book encouraged me to take Peng seriously. Our research together showed he was absolutely right. East Asian thought was shown by our experiments to be radically different in many ways from Western thought.

A classic treatise on how the mind works in a social context by two of the most famous social psychologists in the world. Why do people do what they do? It is not just a matter of their character or personality; we all respond to social norms, social pressures, and cultural contexts, more so than we think we do. And to understand someone else, we have to put ourselves inside their head and understand how they see the world, and how culture and the social context shapes that view. Many people who have read this book say it has fundamentally changed the way they view the world.

James Alcock is the only social psychologist I know who could write a clear, accessible, and comprehensive volume on the psychology of belief—particularly how our thoughts and feelings, actions and reactions, respond not to the world as it actually is but to the world as we believe it to be. No matter how much you think you know about beliefs, and no matter what you actually believe, any reader will find surprises in Alcock’s treatise, such as why so many people cling to beliefs that are foolish, self-destructive, and wrong, believing them to be wise, self-protective, and right. Belief convinced me that faulty beliefs, arising from misapprehension about the cause of a disease, misperceptions of an enemy’s actions, misreading a lover’s motive, misconceptions about which, if any, gods are real, can lead to irrational, maladaptive, and sometimes deadly actions.

This is a book about (social) identity and how our understanding of self is derived from the social groups we are part of.

Two brilliant psychologists, Jay Van Bavel and Dominic Packer, use their own research and insights from social psychology and neuroscience to explain how identity really works and how it influences our thinking and doing every single day.

The book really makes you think about how our social nature impacts on all kinds of decision-making, and it will give you new ideas and insights about power and influence. 

Daniel Pink provides a unique perspective on finding meaning and purpose in life by embracing the transformative potential of regret.

As you explore your sense of meaning and purpose, this book offers valuable insights into how reflecting on past experiences and learning from mistakes can enrich your life's journey. It made me rethink past so-called regrets, and whether they might have positively or negatively influenced my sense of meaning.

Through thorough primary research and compelling stories, Pink demonstrates how regret can inspire personal growth, self-improvement, and a clearer understanding of your life's direction. The book encourages you to use regret as a powerful resource, which only can help your sense of meaning and purpose.

Some academics dismiss this book because it lacks statistical support. They have a point, but it’s still a great book. It’s also over a hundred years old, so what do you expect?

Gustave Le Bon was a medical doctor who became Professor of Psychology and Allied Sciences at the University of Paris. Le Bon’s key proposal is that crowd thinking is not the sum of individuals’ minds but an interdependent psychological entity. The Crowd is a short book and perennially in print.

The new fourth edition of the classic text on cognitive social psychology with many important implications for understanding consumer psychology. The authors are leading researchers and the text is organized using an information processing perspective. The text covers classic social psychological topics, such as person perception, person memory, stereotyping, attitudes and persuasion, causal inference, and decision making. The text is science-based, high level, but also very readable and appropriate for a general audience.