How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like

How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like
Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages : 305
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780393077117
ISBN-13 : 039307711X
Rating : 4/5 (17 Downloads)

Synopsis How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like by : Paul Bloom

"Engaging, evocative…[Bloom] is a supple, clear writer, and his parade of counterintuitive claims about pleasure is beguiling." —NPR Why is an artistic masterpiece worth millions more than a convincing forgery? Pleasure works in mysterious ways, as Paul Bloom reveals in this investigation of what we desire and why. Drawing on a wealth of surprising studies, Bloom investigates pleasures noble and seamy, lofty and mundane, to reveal that our enjoyment of a given thing is determined not by what we can see and touch but by our beliefs about that thing’s history, origin, and deeper nature.

The Compass of Pleasure

The Compass of Pleasure
Author :
Publisher : Penguin
Total Pages : 242
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780143120759
ISBN-13 : 0143120751
Rating : 4/5 (59 Downloads)

Synopsis The Compass of Pleasure by : David J. Linden

From the New York Times bestselling author comes a "hugely entertaining" (NPR.org) look at vice and virtue through cutting-edge science As he did in his award-winning book The Accidental Mind, David J. Linden—highly regarded neuroscientist, professor, and writer—weaves empirical science with entertaining anecdotes to explain how the gamut of behaviors that give us a buzz actually operates. The Compass of Pleasure makes clear why drugs like nicotine and heroin are addictive while LSD is not, how fast food restaurants ensure that diners will eat more, why some people cannot resist the appeal of a new sexual encounter, and much more. Provocative and illuminating, this is a radically new and thorough look at the desires that define us.

The Science of Pleasure

The Science of Pleasure
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 378
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781134949878
ISBN-13 : 1134949871
Rating : 4/5 (78 Downloads)

Synopsis The Science of Pleasure by : Harvie Ferguson

In this rich and original work, the author argues that science is the highest expression of bourgeois thought and whilst it may have liberated mankind, it has also devised new forms of repression, discipline and control.

Happiness

Happiness
Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Total Pages : 224
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780191604744
ISBN-13 : 0191604747
Rating : 4/5 (44 Downloads)

Synopsis Happiness by : Daniel Nettle

What exactly is happiness? Can we measure it? Why are some people happy and others not? And is there a drug that could eliminate all unhappiness? People all over the world, and throughout the ages, have thought about happiness, argued about its nature, and, most of all, desired it. But why do we have such a strong instinct to pursue happiness? And if happiness is good in itself, why haven't we simply evolved to be happier? Daniel Nettle uses the results of the latest psychological studies to ask what makes people happy and unhappy, what happiness really is, and to examine our urge to achieve it. Along the way we look at brain systems, at mind-altering drugs, and how happiness is now marketed to us as a commodity. Nettle concludes that while it may be unrealistic to expect lasting happiness, our evolved tendency to seek happiness drives us to achieve much that is worthwhile in itself. What is more, it seems to be not your particular circumstances that define whether you are happy so much as your attitude towards life. Happiness gives us the latest scientific insights into the nature of our feelings of well-being, and what these imply for how we might live our lives.

More Orgasms Please

More Orgasms Please
Author :
Publisher : Random House
Total Pages : 213
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781473565562
ISBN-13 : 1473565561
Rating : 4/5 (62 Downloads)

Synopsis More Orgasms Please by : The Hotbed Collective

A FRANK, FUNNY AND EMPOWERING CELEBRATION OF FEMALE PLEASURE An orgasm will help you sleep and keep you looking younger, it doesn’t cost money and isn’t a scarce resource. So why is it that, like the pay gap, there is an ‘orgasm gap’ between women and men? The Hotbed Collective began life as a podcast with a mission ‘to make life better one orgasm at a time’. Their debut book, More Orgasms Please is an open, honest and at moments hilarious dive into all aspects of sex for women. It covers feminist porn, body image, menopause and much more. Like the podcast that inspired it, More Orgasms Please is like the best sort of chat between friends: punchy and playful, normalising and educating. It is an eye-opening read that puts women’s bodies and our right to pleasure firmly on the map. Think of it as ‘Couch to 5k’ ... for orgasms.

Why Good Sex Matters

Why Good Sex Matters
Author :
Publisher : Harvest
Total Pages : 277
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781328451309
ISBN-13 : 1328451305
Rating : 4/5 (09 Downloads)

Synopsis Why Good Sex Matters by : Nan Wise

A sex therapist and neuroscientist describes anhedonia, the inability to feel a satisfactory amount of pleasure--and provides the pathway back to fully enjoying sex, food, time with family and friends, and other pastimes, while also staving off depression, anxiety, and addiction. Assaulted with opportunities for pleasure everywhere--from sex to food or exotic escapes--our culture is becoming more depressed and anxious. Research has shown that many people are having less sex, and that those who do have a lot enjoy it less. For more than thirty years, Nan Wise has worked as a therapist helping people gain a satisfying sex life. In recent years, her work has shifted to the study of anhedonia--the inability to experience pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable--and why more people than ever suffer from it. In Why Good Sex Matters, Wise not only reveals the fundamental problem in how we think about sex and pleasure but also how we arrived at this problematic relationship to begin with. This fascinating book helps us reclaim our innate capacity for joy, fun, exuberance, curiosity, and humor, while showing how reaching our sexual potential makes us smarter, happier, and more productive people. Ultimately, it reveals how a new understanding of sex can lead to a more expansive experience of pleasure in all aspects of our lives.

The Autonomy of Pleasure

The Autonomy of Pleasure
Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Total Pages : 409
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780231540872
ISBN-13 : 0231540876
Rating : 4/5 (72 Downloads)

Synopsis The Autonomy of Pleasure by : James A. Steintrager

What would happen if pleasure were made the organizing principle for social relations and sexual pleasure ruled over all? Radical French libertines experimented clandestinely with this idea during the Enlightenment. In explicit novels, dialogues, poems, and engravings, they wrenched pleasure free from religion and morality, from politics, aesthetics, anatomy, and finally reason itself, and imagined how such a world would be desirable, legitimate, rapturous—and potentially horrific. Laying out the logic and willful illogic of radical libertinage, this book ties the Enlightenment engagement with sexual license to the expansion of print, empiricism, the revival of skepticism, the fashionable arts and lifestyles of the Ancien Régime, and the rise and decline of absolutism. It examines the consequences of imagining sexual pleasure as sovereign power and a law unto itself across a range of topics, including sodomy, the science of sexual difference, political philosophy, aesthetics, and race. It also analyzes the roots of radical claims for pleasure in earlier licentious satire and their echoes in appeals for sexual liberation in the 1960s and beyond.

Reclaiming Erotic Pleasure

Reclaiming Erotic Pleasure
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages :
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0973833238
ISBN-13 : 9780973833232
Rating : 4/5 (38 Downloads)

Synopsis Reclaiming Erotic Pleasure by : Jesse Caffyn

Pleasure, Reward, Preference

Pleasure, Reward, Preference
Author :
Publisher : Academic Press
Total Pages : 333
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781483273723
ISBN-13 : 1483273725
Rating : 4/5 (23 Downloads)

Synopsis Pleasure, Reward, Preference by : D. E. Berlyne

Pleasure, Reward, Preference: Their Nature, Determinants, and Role in Behavior covers the proceedings of a symposium by the same title, held at the Klarskovgaard Training Institute, near Korsør, Denmark, on June 5-9 1972, organized under the auspices of the Advisory Group on Human Factors of the Scientific Affairs Division of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This book is composed of 11 chapters, and starts with a historical perspective and review of the principal problems related to understanding the principles of pleasure, reward, and preference. The next chapters explore neurophysiological research with animals and the human cognitive phenomena. These topics are followed by discussions of the concept of exploratory choice, verbal judgment, the law of effects and an adaptation-level model for affectivity and perception. The concluding chapters provide examples of behavioristic theories and describe a process model of motivation to understand the complexity of cognition and predictability of behavior. These chapters also tackle the role of pleasure and reward in human motivation and learning, as well as present a metascientific frame of motivation. This text will prove useful to psychologists, behaviorist, and researchers.

Stumbling on Happiness

Stumbling on Happiness
Author :
Publisher : Vintage Canada
Total Pages : 336
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780307371362
ISBN-13 : 0307371360
Rating : 4/5 (62 Downloads)

Synopsis Stumbling on Happiness by : Daniel Gilbert

A smart and funny book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (often hilarious) anecdotes to show us why we’re so lousy at predicting what will make us happy – and what we can do about it. Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes. Just as memory plays tricks on us when we try to look backward in time, so does imagination play tricks when we try to look forward. Using cutting-edge research, much of it original, Gilbert shakes, cajoles, persuades, tricks and jokes us into accepting the fact that happiness is not really what or where we thought it was. Among the unexpected questions he poses: Why are conjoined twins no less happy than the general population? When you go out to eat, is it better to order your favourite dish every time, or to try something new? If Ingrid Bergman hadn’t gotten on the plane at the end of Casablanca, would she and Bogey have been better off? Smart, witty, accessible and laugh-out-loud funny, Stumbling on Happiness brilliantly describes all that science has to tell us about the uniquely human ability to envision the future, and how likely we are to enjoy it when we get there.