From respected academics like Carol Gilligan to pop-psych gurus like John Gray, and even the controversial Harvard President Lawrence Summers, the message has long been the same: Men and women are fundamentally different, and trying to bridge the gender gap can only lead to grief. But as the New York Times Book Review raved, Barnett and Rivers "debunk these theories in a no-nonsense way, offering a refreshingly direct (i.e. unashamedly judgmental) critique of traditional parental ...

Long, productive lives are the destiny of most of us, not just the privilege of our great-grandchildren. The story of aging is not one of steady decline and decay; we need a new narrative based on solid research, not scare stories. Today Americans enjoy a new, healthy stage of life, between roughly 65 and 79, during which we are staying engaged in the workplace, starting new relationships and careers, remaining creative and becoming entrepreneurs and job creators.We are in the mids...

Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett are widely acclaimed for their analyses of women, men, and society. In The Truth About Girls and Boys, they tackle a new, troubling trend in the theorizing of gender: that the learning styles, brain development, motivation, cognitive and spatial abilities, and "natural" inclinations of girls and boys are so fundamentally different, they require unique styles of parenting and education.Ignoring the science that challenges these claims, t...

Revised for the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication, Alfie Kohn's landmark challenge to carrot-and-stick psychology features updated reflections and research in a major new afterword by the author.Our basic strategy for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summed up in six words: Do this and you’ll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in the same way that we train the family pet.

The Associated Press calls them "The Entitlement Generation," and they are storming into schools, colleges, and businesses all over the country. They are today's young people, a new generation with sky-high expectations and a need for constant praise and fulfillment. In this provocative new book, headline-making psychologist and social commentator Dr. Jean Twenge documents the self-focus of what she calls "Generation Me" -- people born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Herse...

"A lightning bolt of a book" makes the case for why self-directed learning — "unschooling" — is the best way to get kids to learn (Lenore Skenazy)In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that in order to foster children who will thrive in today’s constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their own learning and development. Drawing on evidence from anthropology, psychology, and history, he demonstrates that free play is ...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKHow much credit do parents deserve when their children turn out welt? How much blame when they turn out badly? Judith Rich Harris has a message that will change parents' lives: The "nurture assumption" -- the belief that what makes children turn out the way they do, aside from their genes, is the way their parents bring them up -- is nothing more than a cultural myth. This electrifying book explodes some of our unquestioned bel...

"David Elkind [is] one of psychology's leading lights."--Washington PostWith the first edition of The Hurried Child, David Elkind emerged as the voice of parenting reason, calling our attention to the crippling effects of hurrying our children through life. He showed that by blurring the boundaries of what is age appropriate, by expecting--or imposing--too much too soon, we force our kids to grow up too fast, to mimic adult sophistication while th...

“After years of debate and inquiry, the key to a great marriage remained shrouded in mystery. Until now...”—Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of SuccessEli J. Finkel's insightful and ground-breaking investigation of marriage clearly shows that the best marriages today are better than the best marriages of earlier eras. Indeed, they are the best marriages the world has ever known. He presents his findings here for the first time in this luc...

A revolutionary and timely reconsideration of everything we know about power. Celebrated UC Berkeley psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner argues that compassion and selflessness enable us to have the most influence over others and the result is power as a force for good in the world.Power is ubiquitous—but totally misunderstood. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, Dr. Dacher Keltner presents the very idea of power in a whole new light, demonstrating not just how it...

Somehow, a set of deeply conservative assumptions about children -- what they're like and how they should be raised -- have congealed into the conventional wisdom in our society. Parents are accused of being both permissive and overprotective, unwilling to set limits and afraid to let their kids fail. Young people, meanwhile, are routinely described as entitled and narcissistic . . . among other unflattering adjectives.In The Myth of the Spoiled Child, Alfie Kohn systemati...

Death and taxes come later; what seems inevitable for children is the idea that, after spending the day at school, they must then complete more academic assignments at home. The predictable results: stress and conflict, frustration and exhaustion. Parents respond by reassuring themselves that at least the benefits outweigh the costs. But what if they don't? In The Homework Myth, nationally known educator and parenting expert Alfie Kohn systematically examines the usual defenses of...