12 min read
9 chapters
Atlas of the Heart
Brené Brown · 2021
Most of us can name only three emotions; this atlas hands us language for eighty-seven, and argues that the words you have for feeling are the ceiling on how deeply you can connect.
Psychology books
How people actually decide — bias, memory, emotion, and the studies behind the headlines.
The shelf
Every title below carries a note on why it earns its place. Read or listen to any of them in the Clif app.
12 min read
9 chapters
Behave
Robert Sapolsky · 2017
The definitive takedown of every "it's just testosterone" excuse, behavior is biology all the way down, and biology is context all the way down.
9 min read
8 chapters
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell · 2005
Popular exploration of snap judgments and the adaptive unconscious, core cognitive psychology made accessible.
9 min read
9 chapters
Brain Energy
Christopher Palmer · 2022
Recent, well-discussed theory linking metabolism and mental illness with practical lifestyle implications.
12 min read
9 chapters
Buddha's Brain
Rick Hanson · 2009
A neuropsychologist shows that contentment, love, and inner peace are not just feelings but trainable brain states you can deliberately wire in.
9 min read
8 chapters
Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman · 1995
Popularized EQ as a teachable skill set rivaling IQ, central to applied emotional psychology.
10 min read
8 chapters
Emotional Intelligence 2.0
Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves · 2009
EQ is the biggest single driver of career success that almost no one is deliberately practicing, and unlike IQ, this book proves you can raise yours on purpose.
11 min read
9 chapters
Factfulness
Hans Rosling · 2018
A physician-statistician's field guide to the ten instincts that make smart people wrong about the world, and the simple thinking tools that fix them.
11 min read
8 chapters
Freakonomics
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner · 2005
Once you see that incentives, not intentions, run the world, you can never un-see the hidden machinery behind schoolteachers, sumo wrestlers, crack dealers, and crime itself.
11 min read
9 chapters
Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships
Eric Berne · 1964
The 1964 bestseller that gave the world "transactional analysis" and a witty, unsparing catalog of the psychological games we play instead of being honest with each other.
9 min read
8 chapters
Give and Take
Adam Grant · 2013
Shows how generous 'givers' can rise to the top, reshaping how we think about success at work.
11 min read
9 chapters
How Emotions Are Made
Lisa Feldman Barrett · 2017
The book that dismantles the "fear center" and proves your brain doesn't detect emotions, it builds them.
12 min read
8 chapters
How to Change Your Mind
Michael Pollan · 2018
A skeptical, sober-minded food writer takes psychedelics seriously as medicine and mystery, and comes back convinced they may reshape how we treat dying, addiction, and the healthy mind itself.
11 min read
8 chapters
I'm OK—You're OK
Thomas A. Harris · 1967
It gives you a map of the three "recorded" selves running your relationships, and shows that being OK with yourself and others is a decision you make, not a feeling you wait for.
12 min read
9 chapters
Misbehaving
Richard H. Thaler · 2015
A field-founder's insider story of how paying attention to the ways real people actually behave, the stuff economics called noise, rewrote the discipline and gave us the nudge.
11 min read
9 chapters
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson · 2007
The accessible definitive treatment of cognitive dissonance and how we rationalize our mistakes.
12 min read
9 chapters
Moonwalking with Einstein
Joshua Foer · 2011
A skeptical journalist trains for a year, wins the U.S. Memory Championship, and proves that extraordinary memory is a learnable technique, not a gift you're born with.
10 min read
9 chapters
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein · 2021
Shows how choice architecture steers decisions, applying behavioral psychology to everyday choices.
11 min read
8 chapters
Outliers: The Story of Success
Malcolm Gladwell · 2008
It dismantles the self-made-genius myth and shows that extraordinary success is manufactured by hidden advantages of timing, culture, and accumulated hours.
12 min read
9 chapters
Poor Charlie's Almanack
Charles T. Munger · 2005
Warren Buffett's brilliant partner hands you the thinking toolkit behind one of history's greatest fortunes, not stock tips, but a multidisciplinary latticework for sidestepping the folly that ruins everyone else.
13 min read
11 chapters
Predictably Irrational
Dan Ariely · 2008
Accessible experiments showing our irrationality is systematic and predictable, with actionable takeaways.
9 min read
9 chapters
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Susan Cain · 2012
Bestselling exploration of introversion as a personality trait with practical implications for life and work.
11 min read
8 chapters
Remember
Lisa Genova · 2021
A neuroscientist explains what your memory is actually built to do, and why most of what terrifies you about forgetting is your brain working exactly as designed.
12 min read
9 chapters
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari · 2011
The rare big-history book that reveals the invisible fictions, money, nations, rights, running your daily life, and why Homo sapiens conquered the world by believing them together.
10 min read
9 chapters
StrengthsFinder 2.0
Tom Rath · 2007
The book that flipped self-improvement on its head, arguing you grow fastest not by patching your weaknesses but by pouring energy into the raw talents you already have.
11 min read
8 chapters
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
Philip E. Tetlock & Dan Gardner · 2015
Forecasting isn't a gift you're born with, it's a discipline of humility, math, and relentless self-correction that ordinary people can outperform CIA analysts by learning.
9 min read
10 chapters
Talking to Strangers
Malcolm Gladwell · 2019
Examines why we misread strangers, drawing on social psychology of trust and default-to-truth.
11 min read
9 chapters
The Art of Thinking Clearly
Rolf Dobelli · 2011
A field guide to the 99 mental potholes your brain hits daily, because in a world of noise, avoiding stupidity beats chasing brilliance.
11 min read
9 chapters
The Brain That Changes Itself
Norman Doidge · 2007
The book that killed the myth of the hardwired brain, proof, through real patients, that you can rewire yourself at any age.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Chimp Paradox
Steve Peters · 2012
A consultant psychiatrist to Olympic champions gives you a simple, sticky model of your own mind, and the practical means to stop your emotional brain from sabotaging your life.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Dance of Anger
Harriet Lerner · 1985
The book that taught a generation of women their anger isn't a character flaw to apologize for, but a compass pointing at exactly what needs to change.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Four Tendencies
Gretchen Rubin · 2017
Once you know whether you meet or resist expectations, you stop fighting your nature and start building the exact scaffolding that makes habits stick.
12 min read
9 chapters
The Laws of Human Nature
Robert Greene · 2018
The people who master any field first master the oldest, least-updated software running underneath everyone around them: human nature itself.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Memory Book
Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas · 1974
The book that turned memory from a talent you're born with into a set of mechanical tricks anyone can run in seconds.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Optimism Bias
Tali Sharot · 2011
A neuroscientist reveals that our brains are wired to expect the best, an illusion that, against all logic, keeps us healthier, happier, and moving forward.
9 min read
9 chapters
The Paradox of Choice
Barry Schwartz · 2004
Explains why more options breed anxiety and worse decisions, a widely-known decision psychology classic.
12 min read
9 chapters
The Righteous Mind
Jonathan Haidt · 2012
A moral psychologist's field guide to why good people are divided by politics and religion, and why your gut, not your logic, is quietly running the show.
11 min read
9 chapters
The Road Back to You
Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile · 2016
The friendliest on-ramp to the Enneagram, a personality map that doesn't flatter you, it exposes the story you've been unconsciously telling to survive.
9 min read
9 chapters
The Social Animal
Elliot Aronson · 1972
A classic, authoritative introduction to social psychology, conformity, and persuasion by a field giant.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell · 2000
Gladwell reveals that social epidemics follow the same rules as viral ones, and that a handful of exceptional people, sticky ideas, and small context tweaks can flip a trend overnight.
10 min read
10 chapters
Think Again
Adam Grant · 2021
Teaches the underrated skill of rethinking and updating your own beliefs and identity.
9 min read
8 chapters
Thinking in Bets
Annie Duke · 2018
A poker champion's practical framework for making better decisions by separating decision quality from outcomes.
11 min read
8 chapters
Thinking in Systems
Donella H. Meadows · 2008
The clearest field guide ever written for seeing the hidden structures that quietly run every business, economy, and organization you'll ever touch.
9 min read
8 chapters
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman · 2011
The definitive popular account of System 1/System 2 thinking and the biases that warp our judgments.
11 min read
9 chapters
Unlimited Memory
Kevin Horsley · 2014
A memory grandmaster who was labelled learning-disabled as a child proves the punchline: memory isn't a gift you're born with, it's a set of techniques you can learn in an afternoon.
11 min read
9 chapters
Why We Remember
Charan Ranganath · 2024
You don't have a bad memory, you have a human one, tuned to keep what matters and let the rest go.
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