Autismo/ Autism: Hacia una explicacion del enigma/ Explaining The Enigma (Psicologia Alianza... Book

Dr Baron has done it again. But this time Dr Baron is not alone. It is a concerted effort of Dr Baron and Dr Branscombe, Dr Byrne and Dr Bhardwaj. The team together has done a wonderful job in explaining concepts and theories about Social Psychology.

The book borrows its structure from Dr Baron's book on Psychology and is written in the same style: easy, comprehensible and perfectly occupying. The book has 12 chapters each explaining a different concept and does it quite convincingly. The first chapter is an introduction about social psychology and goes on to describe the history and the experiments about it. The second chapter deals with social cognition: how we think about the social world. It talks about humans' abilities to process and use information. It also gives you an idea about how thoughts shape feelings and feelings shape thoughts.

The next chapter is about social perception: about how we perceive and understand others. Here you come to know of the many biases that humans fall for. This chapter presents a picture about how you attribute causes for yours and other's behavior and about impression management. This is one of the most interesting chapters in the book.

Next comes the chapter about Self. This is complicated since it is about you. It is about how you handle things. It is about self-presentation, self-knowledge, self-identity, self-esteem and social comparison. It is probably an exhausting chapter because it requires you to contemplate, to think about you own self. This might take up some of your cognitive energy. Chapter 5 is about Attitudes which is again one of the most interesting chapters in the book. It explains how the attitudes develop and how do they influence behavior and how do they change.

Next few chapters talk about stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination and tells us that all of the three are not same. Then Dr Baron and his team discuss questions about attraction and love, about social influence and helping others, about aggression and groups and individuals. Finally it presents a chapter about applying the findings of social psychology to the world of business, health and law. This is again an interesting chapter and makes for a compelling read.

The book tries to answer your questions about people, about humans, about how they behave, why do they behave as they do, why do they help each other or hate each other or kill each other or love each other.

This book also has a new and interesting feature which proves to be extremely relevant and helpful. And that's about common sense. The book picks up basic "common sense arguments" and provides experimental refutation or justification for them. For example: is being in a good mood always beneficial? or complementarity or similarity, which is the basis for attraction? or does "blowing off steam" really help?

There are lots of things that you will come to know about humans here. I will restate what I wrote for Dr Baron's "Psychology" :

The book has helped me understand myself better. It was kind of an introspection and the book was my teacher. The book also helps understand humans better. Humans who are all same but yet are so different. It's a feel good book and you will enjoy reading it like any other fiction book. That's what is best about the book. It is like reading stories with somebody by your side to explain those stories

Reading this book was like getting to know multiple humans, multiples personalities and finding out what goes on inside them. Read it when you are interested.