Popular: Finding Happiness and Success in a World That Cares

Popular: Finding Happiness and Success in a World That Cares Too Much About the Wrong Kinds of Relationships

A leading psychologist examines how our popularity affects our success, our relationships, and our happinessâ€”and why we donâ€™t always want to be the most popular

No matter how old you are, thereâ€™s a good chance that the word â€œpopularâ€ immediately transports you back to your teenage years. Most of us can easily recall the adolescent social cliques, the high school pecking order, and which of our peers stood out as the most or the least popular teens we knew. Even as adults we all still remember exactly where we stood in the high school social hierarchy, and the powerful emotions associated with our status persist decades later. This may be for good reason.

Popular examines why popularity plays such a key role in our development and, ultimately, how it still influences our happiness and success today. In many waysâ€”some even beyond our conscious awarenessâ€”those old dynamics of our youth continue to play out in every business meeting, every social gathering, in our personal relationships, and even how we raise our children. Our popularity even affects our DNA, our health, and our mortality in fascinating ways we never previously realized. More than childhood intelligence, family background, or prior psychological issues, research indicates that itâ€™s how popular we were in our early years that predicts how successful and how happy we grow up to be.

But itâ€™s not always the conventionally popular people who fare the best, for the simple reason that there is more than one type of popularityâ€”and many of us still long for the wrong one. As children, we strive to be likable, which can offer real benefits not only on the playground but throughout our lives. In adolescence, though, a new form of popularity emerges, and we suddenly begin to care about status, power, influence, and notorietyâ€”research indicates that this type of popularity hurts us more than we realize.

Realistically, we canâ€™t ignore our natural human social impulses to be included and well-regarded by others, but we can learn how to manage those impulses in beneficial and gratifying ways. Popular relies on the latest research in psychology and neuroscience to help us make the wisest choices for ourselves and for our children, so we may all pursue more meaningful, satisfying, and rewarding relationships.
Country USA
Manufacturer Penguin Books
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2017-06-06
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Penguin Books
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2017-06-06
Format	Kindle eBook

Popular: Finding Happiness and Success in a World That Cares Too Much About the Wrong Kinds of Relationships

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