Books like Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil

01

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

Jonathan Haidt · Psychology

The Righteous Mind is Jonathan Haidt's argument that moral reasoning is not the source of our moral judgments — it's the press secretary for them.

A kindred psychology read.

02

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Robert M. Sapolsky · Science

Behave is Robert Sapolsky's attempt to explain why humans do what they do — the violence, the altruism, the tribalism, the heroism — by working through every layer of biology that contributes to a single act.

A kindred psychology read.

03

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman · Psychology

Thinking, Fast and Slow is Daniel Kahneman's account of the two cognitive systems that govern human thought.

A kindred psychology read.

04

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari · History

Sapiens traces the full arc of human history from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa roughly 70,000 years ago to the present.

A kindred psychology read.

05

Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

Paul Bloom · Psychology

Paul Bloom's argument is not that we should care less about others.

Both dig into empathy.

06

Emotional Intelligence

Daniel Goleman · Psychology

Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, published in 1995, made a widely influential argument: that the cluster of abilities involved in managing emotions — self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skill — predicts life outcomes at least as well as IQ, and possibly better in many domains.

Both dig into empathy.

07

On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

Carl R. Rogers · Psychology

Carl Rogers wrote this book in 1961 as an attempt to communicate his therapeutic approach to readers outside the consulting room.

Both dig into empathy.

08

Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain

Lisa Feldman Barrett · Psychology

Lisa Feldman Barrett wrote this short book — genuinely short at under thirty thousand words — as an accessible introduction to seven core findings of modern neuroscience, each presented as a lesson that overturns something most people believe.

Both dig into human nature.

09

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

Daniel Goleman · Psychology

Daniel Goleman's follow-up to Emotional Intelligence shifts focus from the inner world to the social.

Both dig into empathy.

10

Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect

Matthew D. Lieberman · Psychology

Matthew Lieberman is one of the founders of social neuroscience, the field that uses brain imaging and neuroscience methods to study social behavior.

Both dig into empathy.

11

The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It Every Time

Maria Konnikova · Psychology

Maria Konnikova has a PhD in psychology and writes about it for a wide audience.

Both dig into human nature.

12

The Fear Factor: How One Emotion Connects Altruists, Psychopaths, and Everyone In-Between

Abigail Marsh · Psychology

Abigail Marsh is a Georgetown neuroscientist who studies why some people are extraordinarily altruistic and others are not.

Both dig into empathy.