Kirjahaku

From self-help to medication, therapy, and cognitive neuroscience, this book traces the uses and limits of psychology. Offering a systematic exploration of the ways in which psychology is used in contemporary society, it refines our understanding of the extent of the field. In addition to conceptual analysis of how science, truth, biology, mind, and meaning intersect and interact in the mind sciences, A Suspicious Science draws from history and anthropology to articulate an interdisciplinary multi-level form of psychology that may serve to orient the field. The book synthesizes debates in psychology and philosophy concerning methodology and the nature of explanation with debates about its practical context as a human science. Ultimately, it suggests psychology provides us myths and rituals that ground a particular sense of meaning and motivation in our lives. By aligning cultural, emotional, and philosophical uses of psychology, this book clarifies a synoptic, humanistic model of the mind within the human sciences.

Balancing psychological, conceptual and historical analyses with examples drawn from popular culture and mass media, Rami Gabriel traces the ways in which beliefs about the self – including dualism, individualism, and expressivism – influence consumer behaviour. These understandings of the self, Gabriel argues, structure the values that Americans seek and find in consumer society; they therefore have structural consequences for our cultural, political and economic lives. For example, Gabriel describes how imbalances in the institutions of participatory politics have directly resulted from a consumer society centered on powerful nongovernmental institutions and a scattered body of disengaged citizens whose social and individual needs are not primarily satisfied through civic involvement. By exploring the relationship between our individual needs and our institutions, Gabriel ultimately points the way toward transformations that could lead to a more sustaining and sustainable society.