Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior cover art

Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior

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About this listen

Every day of your life is spent surrounded by mysteries that involve what appear to be rather ordinary human behaviors. What makes you happy? Where did your personality come from? Why do you have trouble controlling certain behaviors? Why do you behave differently as an adult than you did as an adolescent?

Since the start of recorded history, and probably even before, people have been interested in answering questions about why we behave the way we do. And many fields - including philosophy, psychology, and even theology - are focused on finding explanations. But it's only in recent decades that researchers can finally approach, understand, and solve the mysteries of emotion, thought, and behavior - solutions that help each of us to better know ourselves and the people around us. The result is not only a more solid understanding of what it means to be human, but a stronger foundation from which to live more effectively with others and to grasp their intricate behaviors and quirks.

Now you can gain those benefits through a series of 24 intriguing lectures from an award-winning teacher. Professor Leary takes you on a fascinating journey into the complex heart of who you are, using the latest theories, case studies, experiments, and stories to cast light on a wide variety of human behaviors, both ordinary and puzzling.

Throughout these lectures, you'll learn about the various interacting forces that influence your behavior. These include your genetic blueprint, your personal experiences, your upbringing, and the people and social groups that surround you.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2012 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2012 The Great Courses
Psychology Psychology & Mental Health

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Added 30/7/20: My review below is long so I have decided to revisit it and summarise it here. I loved this audiobook. I thoroughly recommend it. The content is good and the narrator is excellent - his voice is smooth.

There was one lecture which I don’t accept because my personal evidence doesn’t reflect the research cited in the lecture but the vast majority of the lectures are fascinating and educational.

This was my first “Great Courses” audiobook. It caused me to buy more including the only other audiobook (at the time of writing) on Audible by this author and narrator.
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Original review, 5/11/19:

I find this fascinating. I have learnt so much, from the very first lecture.

For example the third lecture, “Where do people’s personalities come from?” includes the heritability (i.e. the extent to which it is influenced by your genes) of what we call character. It discusses many things such as the heritability of divorce (i.e. the extent to which your genes make you more likely to divorce). The lecture ends with how genes affect your environment which in turn affects your character (that was news to me - the lecturer explains that how you act is often due to both nature and nurture). That’s just a tiny part of one 33 minute lecture. Fascinating.

Each lecture is approximately 29-33 minutes long so it is easy to dip into. They vary in length which is good - this isn’t a TV programme where every episode must be exactly 30 minutes long and the programme suffers due to the editing to achieve that.

The lectures end with applause but there is no noise during each lecture so I suspect that the applause may have been edited in. I mention this as this audiobook is not (apparently) a compilation of lectures to university students which have incidentally been recorded and sold. It seems to have been recorded in an Audible studio. The relevance is that there is no extraneous noise from the audience competing with the lecturer.

The lecturer is good - no monotony here.

Superb.

Loved these lectures

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I read some reviews for this audiobook, saw the star rating and knew it was going to be good. However, I didnt realise how good it would be. Such simple and easy to follow examples of the different areas of behaviour, I found it absolutely fascinating. It wont be long until I listen to this allover again, next time taking some notes of some key areas. Excellent to the level that I could be bothered to write a review!

Exceeded my positive expectations

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Easy to listen to and understand, very well narrated as well. Extremely useful for me and I would recommend it to anyone that wants to start learning about human behaviour .

It doesn't get much better than this

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I have no hesitation in recommending this work.
Interesting, informative and thought provoking throughout
Terrific delivery underpinning the work

Excellent throughout

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Easy listen and really interesting content, that supports what I’m studying. Subjects that everyone should at least think about once.

Thought provoking

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