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    Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being
    Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being
    Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being
    Audiobook8 hours

    Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being

    Written by Brian R. Little, Ph.D.

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    In the past few decades, personality psychology has made considerable progress in raising new questions about human nature—and providing some provocative answers. New scientific research has transformed old ideas about personality based on the theories of Freud, Jung, and the humanistic psychologies of the nineteen sixties, which gave rise to the simplistic categorizations of the Meyer-Briggs Inventory and the "enneagream." But the general public still knows little about the new science and what it reveals about who we are.

    In Me, Myself, and Us, Brian Little, Ph.D., one of the psychologists who helped re-shape the field, provides the first in-depth exploration of the new personality science and its provocative findings for general readers. The book explores questions that are rooted in the origins of human consciousness but are as commonplace as yesterday's breakfast conversation. Are our first impressions of other people's personalities usually fallacious? Are creative individuals essentially maladjusted? Are our personality traits, as William James put it, "set like plaster" by the age of thirty? Is a belief that we are in control of our lives an unmitigated good? Do our singular personalities comprise one unified self or a confederacy of selves, and if the latter, which of our mini-mes do we offer up in marriage or mergers? Are some individuals genetically hard-wired for happiness? Which is the more viable path toward human flourishing, the pursuit of happiness or the happiness of pursuit?

    Little provides a resource for answering such questions, and a framework through which readers can explore the personal implications of the new science of personality. Questionnaires and interactive assessments throughout the book facilitate self-exploration, and clarify some of the stranger aspects of our own conduct and that of others. Brian Little helps us see ourselves, and other selves, as somewhat less perplexing and definitely more intriguing.

    This is not a self-help book, but students at Harvard who took the lecture course on which it is based claim that it changed their lives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateOct 14, 2014
    ISBN9781491551783
    Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being
    Author

    Brian R. Little, Ph.D.

    Dr. Brian Little is an internationally acclaimed scholar and speaker in the field of personality and motivational psychology. He is a fellow of the Well-being Institute at Cambridge University, where he also lectures in the Department of Psychology and the Cambridge Judge Business School. He is a Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at Carleton University. Little has taught at Carleton, McGill, Oxford, and Harvard Universities. He was elected as a “Favorite Professor” by the graduating classes of Harvard for three consecutive years. He lives in Cambridge, England, and Ottawa, Canada.

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    Reviews for Me, Myself, and Us

    4/5

    47 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Fantastic book and very well read. Recommend listening and a must read/listen for anyone interested in understanding themselves
    • 5/5
      This book really changed my outlook on a lot of things. Great read! Surprisingly charming and funny!
    • 5/5
      Absolutely loved this book and the insights and introspection it triggered. Could not improve this - the writing style, content, breadth, humour and generous compassion shared by the author based on his decades of experience educating others. One of my new all time favourite books.
    • 5/5
      excellent !!!
    • 5/5
      I read this for work. It is a good summary of research on personality and well-being, but it is written in a very accessible way and is intended for a broad audience. Little has devoted his career to research on personality and well-being, and his experience allows him to tell a complex, evidence-based story about how who we are affects our health and happiness. Because some aspects of personality are relatively stable, it is sometimes difficult to know what to do with the evidence linking personality and well-being. Changing personality is a difficult proposition. But Little also discusses free traits, or the ways in which we act that may contradict our stable personality traits, and personal projects, our choices about what we spend time on, and how those elements of personality impact well-being. Readers of this book will likely come away with increased self-awareness as well as a few ideas about how to improve well-being.
    • 4/5
      How often have you found yourself thinking someone you thought you knew very well was acting out of character? Is one's personality fixed or can we make changes to our personality to fit the situations we find ourselves in? If we can make changes, is there a cost to our health in doing so? Are we more susceptible to being persuaded by our peers or are we less open to suggestions? Is there a difference between eccentricity and creativity? The study of personality science is an interesting one, and the author delivers his research in addition to some great personal and anecdotal stories. Perhaps the understanding of what makes us and those close to us tick and why we behave the way we do will enable us to communicate better with them, lower stress and increase our sense of well-being.