Ekman and Friesen's breakthrough research on the facial expression of emotion is richly illustrated with photographs depicting surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness and sadness. The authors explain how to identify these basic emotions correctly and how to tell when people try to mask, simulate or neutralize them. The book features several practical exercises that can help actors, teachers, salesmen, counselors, nurses, law-enforcement personnel and physicians - and everyone else who deals with people - become adept, perceptive readers of the facial expressions of emotions.
Ever since American prisoners of war in Korea suddenly switched sides to the communist cause, the concept of brainwashing has continued to fascinate and confuse. Is it really possible to force any thinking person to act in a way completely alien to his or her character? What makes so-called brainwashing so different from the equally insidious effects of indoctrination and conditioning, or even of advertising and education? Research findings from psychology show that brainwashing is not a special subversive technique, but is the clever manipulation of unrealized influences that operate in all our lives. This book, by breaking down so-called brainwashing to its individual elements, shows how such factors as social conditioning, need for approval, emotional dependency and much else that we're unaware of prevent us from being as self-directed as we think we are - and, conversely, which human traits make us the least susceptible to subtle influence.
Emotion in the Human Face, originally published in 1972, was the first volume to evaluate and integrate all research on facial expression of emotion since Darwin published The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals a century earlier. In that edition, Dr. Ekman presented a detailed, critical discussion of research involving the face and emotion, focusing on the complex conceptual and methodological issues involved in such study, and settling many outstanding controversies including whether facial expression accurately represents emotion, and whether some facial expressions are universal. In 1982, Dr. Ekman expanded, reorganized, annotated and cross-referenced the contents of the first edition, bringing the review of basic research up to date and charting the new developments in the field. The present edition is a special Malor Books third edition that includes a new preface, three additional chapters and a new conclusion summarizing Ekman's final views on the field he's played such a large part in creating.
This new, revised edition of the classic study takes a fresh look at human consciousness and the untapped potential of the human mind. Robert Ornstein reexamines what's known about consciousness and why this understanding is so important at this time of enormous challenge, change and potential. He begins with an exploration of how the human brain evolved as a complex system for limiting what we pick up from the vast external environment to just the information we need to survive. He describes how we fill in the gaps with unconscious inferences - assumptions, categorizations, expectations and habituations that allow us to operate in the world, but that limit our perception of what is, and what's possible. Going beyond the theory that creative impulses originate in the right side of the brain and rational impulses in the left, Ornstein shows how a synthesis of these two functions can bring about a more complete science of human consciousness with an extended conception of our own capabilities. He proposes that education at all levels should now include learning and teaching about our human nature - the nature of the person being taught. Offering far more than scholarly discourse, Ornstein enriches his presentation with thought-provoking illustrations and traditional teachings stories that bring the science to life, giving readers a firsthand taste of what such education might be like. Only with the development of self-knowledge and the cultivation of a comprehensive, expanded consciousness, he says, will humanity be able to perceive and take the selfless steps necessary to solve our collective problems. This new edition of The Psychology of Consciousness comes at a time when, on a global scale, we need this type of thinking more than ever.
A stunning unification of science and tradition for a revolutionary new concept of spirituality to address the challenges of the modern world. The book explores how our everyday mind works as a device for selecting just a few parts of the outside reality that are important for our survival. We don't experience the world as it is, but as a virtual reality - a small, limited system that evolved to keep us safe and ensure our survival. This system, though essential for getting us safely across a busy street, is insufficient for understanding and solving the challenges of the modern world. But we are also endowed with a quiescent second network of cognition that, when activated, can dissolve or break through the barriers of ordinary consciousness. We all experience this activation to some degree, when we suddenly see a solution to a problem or have an intuitive or creative insight - when we connect to a larger whole beyond the self. By combining ancient teachings with modern science, we have a new psychology of spiritual experience - the knowledge to explore how this second network can be developed and stabilized. The authors take care to differentiate this development from temporary trance experiences or from overloading the brain with drugs, dancing, drumming or other practices. Instead, they emphasize the need to reflect on and explicate, both individually and collectively, the functional value of virtues such as generosity, humility and gratitude, and of service. These attitudes and activities shift brain function away from the self and toward an expanded consciousness - an experience of the world's greater interconnectedness and unity and an understanding of one's place in it. Neither an academic tome nor a religious treatise, God 4.0 is a comprehensive, thoroughly researched work addressed to inquisitive, openminded people genuinely trying to understand life and meaning. It is written for critical thinkers; for readers of news, history, biography and science who seek more from life than is accessible through any one of these disciplines; for people who may find religion as they've encountered it to be unsatisfactory. The authors neither advocate nor dismiss organized religion, but contend that knowledge we have now of how higher consciousness happens in the brain allows us to move beyond faith, belief and ritual to a direct experience of self-transcendence, which has been called seeing God. Developing this innate second system of perception could be the first step toward finding the vital common ground that reconciles science, religion and spirituality, allowing us to solve our global problems as we work toward a new spiritual literacy and enter a new era - God 4.0.
This groundbreaking work is a unique collaboration between an Oxford University psychologist and two literary critics. It explores the lives and works of 10 authors - among them Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath - who embody both serious mental illness and great originality of thought. The book draws upon personal diaries, historical archives, clinical records and literary productions, and examines modes of thinking - such as divergent thought, over-inclusiveness and autism - that psychosis and creativity might have in common. Using genetics, experimental abnormal and clinical psychology, personality research, descriptive psychiatry and literary analysis, Claridge, Pryor and Watkins present the revolutionary idea that normality and psychosis are continuous with each other. Healthy varieties and styles of thought and perception substantially overlap with the inclination toward psychotic breakdown and, indeed, might at times be identical. Psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, therapists and general readers will gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between madness and creativity from this book.
The Healing Brain presents an easy-to-read, amusing, entertaining, and yet highly authoritative account of how our brain minds our body - actively guarding and defending our health and wellbeing. Neurologist Robert Ornstein and physician David Sobel highlight the themes most important to understanding this fascinating science. They explain that, contrary to many of our assumptions about the main purpose of our brain, it evolved primarily for higher thinking - and that, in fact, it works tirelessly to adapt to the changing world around us. This essential reference book helps us understand our brain as the original health maintenance organization, and gives us the understanding we need to help it do what it does best: guard our health and help us to heal. This pioneering book helped bring about a new way of looking at the brain, one that restored the perspective that its major role is to mind the body and maintain health. The Healing Brain provided much of the raw material for the new view, and the collective weight of the findings helped close the artificial gap between mind and body.
In Darwin and Facial Expression, Paul Ekman and a cast of other notable scholars and scientists reconsider the central concepts and key sources of information in Darwin's work on emotional expression. First published in 1972 to celebrate the centennial of the publication of Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin and Facial Expression is the first of three works edited by Dr. Ekman and others on the subject. This Malor edition contains new and updated references. Darwin claimed that we cannot understand human emotional expression without understanding the emotional expressions of animals, as our emotional expressions are in large part determined by our evolution. Not only are there similarities in the appearance of some emotional expressions between man and certain other animals, but the principles that explain why a particular emotional expression occurs with a particular emotion also apply across species.
Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich explain that we are causing our own problems because we have created a world where our basic mental functions are no longer suitable. We evolved over a period of millions of years to survive in small tribal families on the wild grassy plains of East Africa. Now the way we live has nothing to do with that time and place, but the mental tools that were developed to survive on the savanna have remained unchanged. These instincts were wonderfully adapted to the environment that shaped them. But that world, the world that made us, is gone. Now these same instincts are causing us to destroy the world that we made. The threats we face are of our own making, and we can unmake them. If people learn how we have come to this point, we can restore our hope for the future. New World New Mind describes the way our minds have evolved, and offers suggestions for how to cope with who we are in the world we live in now. Recent decades have seen remarkable progress in many areas. For example, despite the abject suffering of millions of people, it is nonetheless true that there has been unprecedented alleviation of poverty and disease for the world's poorest people. There are so many promising and astonishing advances in medicine, technology, and the social and physical sciences that if we give ourselves a chance to survive, our species could enter a golden age.
A provocative look at how the human mind evolved, and what this means for our future. What is the mind? How is it that, like the proverbial fish that knows so little about the surrounding water, we know so little about something that controls every aspect of our individual and collective lives? Passionate, entertaining and provocative, The Evolution of Consciousness presents a fundamental challenge to our assumptions about the mind and how it works. Robert Ornstein tackles the mind's central mysteries, such as how, over the course of our evolution, human brain size grew so quickly; why we dream; and how memory works. Crediting the discoveries of Charles Darwin (whom Ornstein considers the central scientist of modern psychology), The Evolution of Consciousness shows how the mind evolved to help us survive - to avoid danger, procure food and perpetuate the species - rather than to reason why. Through a panoramic history of the evolution of the brain and mind, Ornstein shows that the mind is adaptive rather than rational and that, as a result, it consists of a squadron of simpletons - a miscellaneous collection of unconscious mind-shifts that are geared to surviving in a world long-since gone. Even what we call our self is just another of these simpletons, with its own limited role and insight. Ornstein shows that remaining unaware of these mind-shifts leaves us vulnerable to misjudgment and indoctrination, both individually and culturally. But with wit and wisdom, he points out that within all of us is the potential to go beyond these simpletons and develop an innate perceptive capacity, one that's been called higher consciousness - a new level of understanding reality, and a new altruism, in which everyone can take part. Ornstein maintains that to solve the collective problems of the modern world, we urgently need to develop this innate faculty, which he holds is humanity's next step.
This is a book that shows, in simple detail, one of the most startling findings of modern science: We don't experience the world as it is, but as virtual reality. And while much of the latest scientific work demonstrates this, as do many of the classical psychological illusions, it is an important meeting point for students of the mind, brain, philosophy and religion because, as we can now see in light of this book, all these disciplines begin at the same place.
This is not an abstruse treatise, but part graphic novel and part direct address. It allows the reader a breakthrough understanding of the mind which is not available anywhere else. It is, in part, a summa of Dr. Ornstein's research and writing of the past 35 years (with pieces and references to many of his works) as well as a seminal introduction to new readers.
Meditation and Modern Psychology examines meditation from two perspectives: first, from the perspective of religions and philosophies such as Zen, Yoga and those of the Sufis and Christian mystics; and then from the modern psychologist's point of view: what is happening neurophysiologically during and after meditation? By looking at meditation from both points of view, Ornstein produces a modern scientific synthesis - one sympathetic to the practice of meditation, enabling the reader to appreciate and understand meditation as a tool that can lead to a different mode of perception. Robert Ornstein, Ph.D., has written more than twenty books on the brain, mind, and consciousness since the publication of the first edition of this book in 1971. His work emphasizes our urgent need and ability to develop perceptions beyond our human inheritance. From the preface to the 2008 edition of Meditation and Modern Psychology: I wrote this essay in 1970, when meditation was a curiosity, known only to a few tie-dyed people and, of course, the Beatles. There were a spasms of 'Transcendental Meditation' burgeoning, a few obscure Zen centers, odd Yogas, and more. That's where it was, 38 years ago, and this book now looks like a good basic introduction to the high-tech research that followed.
A perennial challenge for educators, writes Nessel, is one that Plato addressed in The Republic: how to avoid simply feeding students information and instead get them to use their innate capacities and think for themselves. The solution, Nessel says, is not to impose a specific curriculum or method of instruction on everyone, but to think creatively about the individual situations of students, in order to improve conditions for learning. In this book, she presents a range of perspectives on schools, teaching and learning from writers as diverse as Leo Tolstoy, Howard Gardner and Elaine Landau - all concerned with the development of inquiring minds and critical thinking abilities.
Robert Ornstein's classic, Multimind, presents a startling new concept of how the human mind works. In a readable and accessible way, he introduces a new science of the mind, explaining why our emotions and attitudes are so easily swayed, and the difficulty of ever really knowing oneself or another person. Ornstein faults the narrowness of IQ tests, stressing the many varied abilities that make up intelligence. Citing studies of hypnosis and multiple personality, he explains how multiple minds coexist in each of us - how each of us has many small minds that simultaneously, but independently, process feelings, fantasies, ideas, fixed routines, interpersonal responses and bodily skills. As we go through our daily lives, different parts of our mind - different minds - come to the fore to handle different situations. This means that you are not the same person from moment to moment, but have different memories and abilities in different situations. Reading this groundbreaking book will help you take a step towards understanding who you really are.
When The Teachers of Gurdjieff was first published more than 50 years ago, it made a considerable stir. George Ivanovich Gurdjieff had been one of the most famous mystics in the West in the first half of the 20th century - a teaching master who had many fashionable and influential pupils. He had a striking appearance and manner of teaching, and his teaching proved to be very influential. But the meaning of his teaching and the sources of it were a puzzle. How did he come by his knowledge? What was to become of it? These were questions that engaged many seekers. This book offers - among the adventures of the search, which takes the reader through such places as the souks of Baghdad and Aleppo - striking and timeless advice to those interested in finding spirituality. Its appeal is far beyond that of one seeker in one era, but offers us information, today, on how to evaluate different forms of teaching, how to study, and even some tantalizing information on the role of Jesus.
One of the most potentially disastrous consequences of global warming is likely to be the massive migration of displaced populations, including many of the world's poorest. As a place where a wealthy, heavily industrialized country is bordered directly by a struggling, preindustrial nation, the 2,000-mile United States-Mexican border provides a stark preview of the challenges we will face. Stereotyped thinking, based on racism or fear, will not solve these problems. The Golden Door is a sensitive exploration of a difficult situation, including background on Cuban, Salvadoran, and Haitian migration to the United States.
For years, North Americans have been seeking rational, analytical answers to despair and anxiety. But now, this rational Western perception of consciousness has been challenged by an Eastern discipline which brings into sharp focus the travesty and deception underlying many of the contemporary awareness movements. Yet it is also the author's intent to combat the easy criticisms of the super-rationalists who dismiss every new development as the irresponsible inventions of the guru-of-the-month club. He offers not only the finding of extensive scientific research on the brain, but also the valuable discoveries of personal experience. There is no one who is better qualified to assess our modern approach to matters of the mind than Robert Ornstein, and he does so with clarity, wit and utter persuasiveness.
What determines the form of mental illness from which particular people suffer? Professor Claridge's central theme is that psychiatric disorders--even in their most severe forms--are abnormal manifestations of temperamental and personality characteristics we all possess to a greater or lesser degree. Examining the major forms of abnormality from this point of view, the author puts particular emphasis on the continuity between schizophrenia and normal behavior.
From the Preface
The exact origins of this book are, I must confess, lost to me, though I do recall that in its present form it began to take shape in the waiting-room of a car body repair shop just north of Oxford. If that seems too casual a beginning, I should explain that my melancholic visit to that establishment eventually led to a more sanguine encounter with Philip Carpenter of Blackwell's. After seeing an early version of the manuscript he suggested to me that, with some revision, it might make a publishable book. Among other things I am grateful to him for articulating what was wrong with the original version and for focusing my mind on the laborious task of reshaping it. The book now conveys as well as it can, I believe, the ideas I meant to impart, at least to the audience for whom it was intended: students of psychology, psychiatry, and allied disciplines, inquisitive professionals in other specialties, and even those members of the general public interested in what an academic (alias clinical) psychologist has to say about mental illness.