Most Popular Books by Barry Schwartz

An eye-opening, groundbreaking tour of the purpose of work in our lives, showing how work operates in our culture and how you can find your own path to happiness in the workplace. Why do we work? The question seems so simple. But Professor Barry Schwartz proves that the answer is surprising, complex, and urgent. We’ve long been taught that the reason we work is primarily for a paycheck. In fact, we’ve shaped much of the infrastructure of our society to accommodate this belief. Then why are so many people dissatisfied with their work, despite healthy compensation? And why do so many people find immense fulfillment and satisfaction through “menial” jobs? Schwartz explores why so many believe that the goal for working should be to earn money, how we arrived to believe that paying workers more leads to better work, and why this has made our society confused, unhappy, and has established a dangerously misguided system. Through fascinating studies and compelling anecdotes, this book dispels this myth. Schwartz takes us through hospitals and hair salons, auto plants and boardrooms, showing workers in all walks of life, showcasing the trends and patterns that lead to happiness in the workplace. Ultimately, Schwartz proves that the root of what drives us to do good work can rarely be incentivized, and that the cause of bad work is often an attempt to do just that. How did we get to this tangled place? How do we change the way we work? With great insight and wisdom, Schwartz shows us how to take our first steps toward understanding, and empowering us all to find great work.

Whether we''re buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions -- both big and small -- have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice -- the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish -- becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice -- from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs -- has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.

A reasoned and urgent call to embrace and protect the essential human quality that has been drummed out of our lives: wisdom. In their provocative new book, Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe explore the insights essential to leading satisfying lives. Encouraging individuals to focus on their own personal intelligence and integrity rather than simply navigating the rules and incentives established by others, Practical Wisdom outlines how to identify and cultivate our own innate wisdom in our daily lives.

“Provocative and richly textured. . . .Schwartz’s analyses of the inadequacies of contemporary scientific views of human nature are compelling, but the consequences are even more worthy of note.” —Los Angeles Times Out of the investigations and speculations of contemporary science, a challenging view of human behavior and society has emerged and gained strength. It is a view that equates “human nature” utterly and unalterably with the pursuit of self-interest. Influenced by this view, people increasingly appeal to natural imperatives, instead of moral ones, to explain and justify their actions and those of others.

By the 1920s, Abraham Lincoln had transcended the lingering controversies of the Civil War to become a secular saint, honored in North and South alike for his steadfast leadership in crisis. Throughout the Great Depression and World War II, Lincoln was invoked countless times as a reminder of America’s strength and wisdom, a commanding ideal against which weary citizens could see their own hardships in perspective. But as Barry Schwartz reveals in Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era, those years represent the apogee of Lincoln’s prestige. The decades following World War II brought radical changes to American culture, changes that led to the diminishing of all heroes—Lincoln not least among them. As Schwartz explains, growing sympathy for the plight of racial minorities, disenchantment with the American state, the lessening of patriotism in the wake of the Vietnam War, and an intensifying celebration of diversity, all contributed to a culture in which neither Lincoln nor any single person could be a heroic symbol for all Americans. Paradoxically, however, the very culture that made Lincoln an object of indifference, questioning, criticism, and even ridicule was a culture of unprecedented beneficence and inclusion, where racial, ethnic, and religious groups treated one another more fairly and justly than ever before. Thus, as the prestige of the Great Emancipator shrank, his legacy of equality continued to flourish. Drawing on a stunning range of sources—including films, cartoons, advertisements, surveys, shrine visitations, public commemorations, and more—Schwartz documents the decline of Lincoln’s public standing, asking throughout whether there is any path back from this post-heroic era. Can a new generation of Americans embrace again their epic past, including great leaders whom they know to be flawed? As the 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial approaches, readers will discover here a stirring reminder that Lincoln, as a man, still has much to say to us—about our past, our present, and our possible futures.

Now in its Fifth Edition, Psychology of Learning and Behavior is one of the most highly regarded texts in its field.

This new textbook offers at once an introduction to learning, its early Pavlovian and operant origins up through the most recent developments, and complete coverage of the psychology of human memory from acquisition and storage to retrieval and forgetting. But unlike other textbook authors who rely primarily on an historical associationist linkage between learning and memory, Barry Schwartz and Daniel Reisberg take a cognitive approach to integrating the two fields.

Abraham Lincoln has long dominated the pantheon of American presidents. From his lavish memorial in Washington and immortalization on Mount Rushmore, one might assume he was a national hero rather than a controversial president who came close to losing his 1864 bid for reelection. In Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory, Barry Schwartz aims at these contradictions in his study of Lincoln''s reputation, from the president''s death through the industrial revolution to his apotheosis during the Progressive Era and First World War. Schwartz draws on a wide array of materials—painting and sculpture, popular magazines and school textbooks, newspapers and oratory—to examine the role that Lincoln''s memory has played in American life. He explains, for example, how dramatic funeral rites elevated Lincoln''s reputation even while funeral eulogists questioned his presidential actions, and how his reputation diminished and grew over the next four decades. Schwartz links transformations of Lincoln''s image to changes in the society. Commemorating Lincoln helped Americans to think about their country''s development from a rural republic to an industrial democracy and to articulate the way economic and political reform, military power, ethnic and race relations, and nationalism enhanced their conception of themselves as one people. Lincoln''s memory assumed a double aspect of "mirror" and "lamp," acting at once as a reflection of the nation''s concerns and an illumination of its ideals, and Schwartz offers a fascinating view of these two functions as they were realized in the commemorative symbols of an ever-widening circle of ethnic, religious, political, and regional communities. The first part of a study that will continue through the present, Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory is the story of how America has shaped its past selectively and imaginatively around images rooted in a real person whose character and achievements helped shape his country''s future.

Cameron Simmons has always been haunted. It begins as a child, when Cam’s father bestows upon him an insult that will take a lifetime to outlive, blaming his slow development on a fictitious tortoise in his hair. From there, Cam’s hauntings multiply: The constant threat of the Vietnam War draft. Failed relationships—and chemical dependencies—that stack up like empty pill bottles. Unfulfilling career moves. And the nagging feeling that his life is just destined to mean . . . something, anything at all. Something—a powerful word. But these things form a pattern Cam can’t see—yet. It’s not until the earth-shattering discovery of his greatest haunting of all—the true identity of his guardian angel—that he can understand the purpose behind each heartache on his unwitting journey to spirit. Capturing each moment of anguish or hilarity with painstaking detail, Calvin Barry Schwartz’s There’s a Tortoise in My Hair is more than a life story; it’s a legacy of love—for the world, for humanity, and for the pains of life that shape our ability to love in the first place.

We all value freedom, family, friends, work, education, health, and leisure—“the best things in life.” But the pressure we experience to chase the dollar in order to satisfy both the demands of the bottom line and the demands of our seemingly insatiable desire to consume are eroding these best things in life. Our children now value profit centers, not sports heroes. Our educational system is fast becoming nothing more than a financial investment where students are encouraged to expend more energy on making the grade than on learning about their world. Our business leaders are turning young idealists into cynics when they cut corners and explain that “everybody’s doing it.” The need to achieve in our careers intrudes so greatly on our personal world that we find ourselves weighing the “costs” of enjoying friendships rather than working. In this book, psychologist Barry Schwartz unravels how market freedom has insidiously expanded its reach into domains where it does not belong. He shows how this trend developed from a misguided application of the American value of individuality and self-pursuit, and how it was aided by our turning away from the basic social institutions that once offered traditional community values. These developments have left us within an overall framework for living where worth is measured entirely by usefulness in the marketplace. The more we allow market considerations to guide our lives, the more we will continue to incur the real costs of living, among them disappointment and loneliness.We all value freedom, family, friends, work, education, health, and leisure—“the best things in life.” But the pressure we experience to chase the dollar in order to satisfy both the demands of the bottom line and the demands of our seemingly insatiable desire to consume are eroding these best things in life. Our children now value profit centers, not sports heroes. Our educational system is fast becoming nothing more than a financial investment where students are encouraged to expend more energy on making the grade than on learning about their world. Our business leaders are turning young idealists into cynics when they cut corners and explain that “everybody’s doing it.” The need to achieve in our careers intrudes so greatly on our personal world that we find ourselves weighing the “costs” of enjoying friendships rather than working. In this book, psychologist Barry Schwartz unravels how market freedom has insidiously expanded its reach into domains where it does not belong. He shows how this trend developed from a misguided application of the American value of individuality and self-pursuit, and how it was aided by our turning away from the basic social institutions that once offered traditional community values. These developments have left us within an overall framework for living where worth is measured entirely by usefulness in the marketplace. The more we allow market considerations to guide our lives, the more we will continue to incur the real costs of living, among them disappointment and loneliness.

Examines the use of research in animal learning to develop theories of human behavior and analyzes the applications of these theories in management and other areas.

ù đó là quyết định lựa chọn quần jeans, hãng hàng không, bác sỹ khám bệnh hay kế hoạch hưu trí, những quyết định hàng ngày của chúng ta - những quyết định từ nhỏ nhặt đến quan trọng như cân bằng nhu cầu cá nhân, gia đình và nghề nghiệp - đang ngày càng trở nên phức tạp hơn bởi sự thừa thãi của những lựa chọn mà chúng ta phải đối mặt. Chúng ta giả định rằng nhiều lựa chọn hơn sẽ tốt hơn và giúp chúng ta thoả mãn hơn. Nhưng hãy xem chừng sự quá tải của những lựa chọn: nó có thể khiến cho bạn nghi vấn về những quyết định của bạn ngay cả khi bạn chưa thực hiện quyết định đó, khiến cho bạn có những kỳ vọng quá cao không có thực, và khiến cho bạn cứ trách móc chính mình cho mọi thất bại xảy ra. Trong cuốn "Nghịch lý của sự lựa chọn" Swartz giải thích tại sao một điều gì đó quá tốt lại không tốt cho chúng ta về mặt tâm lý và cảm xúc. Tổng hợp những nghiên cứu mới nhất của khoa học xã hội, ông cho rằng loại bớt những lựa chọn có thể giúp giảm rất nhiều những căng thẳng, lo lắng và bận rộn trong cuộc sống. Với cách viết dễ hiểu, hấp dẫn và sống động với những giai thoại, ông đã đưa ra những hướng dẫn thực tiễn về cách thức hạn chế sự lựa chọn để dễ quản lý hơn, cách thức khép mình vào kỷ luật để chỉ tập trung vào những điều quan trọng và phớt lờ phần còn lại, và cách thức để hài lòng hơn với những lựa chọn của bạn. "Thật xuất sắc .... Những lập luận của Schwartz về mối tương quan giữa trạng thái cảm xúc và cái ông gọi là "sự chuyên chế của sự lựa chọn" thật hấp dẫn và những gợi ý của nó thì rất đáng quan tâm.... Một cuốn sách sâu sắc" (Tạp chí Christian Science Monitor) "Một cuốn sách đột phá và quyến rũ lý giải sự thừa thãi các lựa chọn có thể khiến cho người tiêu dùng bất mãn. Một cuốn sách phải đọc." (Martin Seligman, tác giả cuốn Authentic Happiness) "Nghịch lý của sự lựa chọn thật xác thực và hữu dụng. Cuốn sách có những lập luận vững chắc với những nghiên cứu đáng tin cậy" (Tờ New York Observer) Mục lục: Lời nói đầu Phần 1: Khi chúng ta lựa chọn Chương 1: Hãy đi mua sắm Chương 2: Sự lựa chọn mới Phần 2: Chúng ta lựa chọn như thế nào Chương 3: Quyết định và lựa chọn Chương 4: Khi chỉ có cái tối ưu là đáng kể Phần 3: Tại sao chúng ta đau khổ Chương 5: Lựa chọn và hạnh phúc Chương 6: Những cơ hội bỏ lỡ Chương 7: "Giá mà..." Vấn đề của sự hối tiếc Chương 8: Tại sao quyết định có thể gây thất vọng? Đó là vấn đề thuộc về tính thích nghi Chương 9: Tại sao mọi thứ đều phải bị so sánh Chương 10: Nguyên nhân do đâu? Lựa chọn, thất vọng và chán nản Phần 4: Chúng ta có thể làm gì Chương 11: Phải làm gì với lựa chọn Mời bạn đón đọc.

„Többségünk számára a munka keveset ad – nagyon keveset. A kérdés, hogy vajon miért.” Miért dolgozunk? Egyszerű kérdés, a válasz azonban meglepő és összetett. Társadalmunk meggyőződése szerint a fizetésért. De akkor vajon miért elégedetlenek a munkájukkal olyan sokan a tisztes javadalmazás ellenére is? És miért tölt el másokat hihetetlen elégedettséggel rosszul fizető munkájuk? Barry Schwartz pszichológus az ipar és az üzleti élet történetét áttekintve feltárja a háttérben álló trendeket és mintázatokat. Bemutatja, miért veszítette el az értelmét a munka és hol találhatunk rá újra. Gondolatébresztő olvasmány mindenkinek, aki szeretné, hogy tartalmasabb legyen a munkája.

Der Psychologieprofessor Barry Schwartz findet in seinem TED-Book ›Warum wir arbeiten‹ eine ganz überraschende, komplexe und eindringliche Antwort auf diese auf den ersten Blick so simple Frage. Er zerstört den Mythos, dass es bei der Arbeit nur ums Geldverdienen gehe und fordert – unterstützt durch zahlreiche Studien und Anekdoten –, dass wir neue Wege finden müssen, um unser Verhältnis zur Arbeit neu zu definieren. Schwartz nimmt uns mit in Krankenhäuser und Friseursalons, Fabriken und Vorstandsetagen und zeigt, welche unterschiedlichen Formen die Arbeit annehmen kann, welche Funktion sie für unsere Kultur innehat und wie jeder von uns seinen eigenen Weg zum Glück am Arbeitsplatz findet.

This wide-ranging boxed set of ten TED Books titles covers everything from architecture to business, space travel to love: The Terrorist’s Son, The Mathematics of Love, The Art of Stillness, The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings, Beyond Measure, Judge This, How We’ll Live on Mars, Why We Work, The Laws of Medicine, and Follow Your Gut. Provocative, intelligent, and forward-thinking, the first ten TED Books is perfect for any curious reader interested in technology, design, and creative thinking. The Terrorist’s Son is the story of the man who planned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing—and the son who chose a different path. The Mathematics of Love is a must-have for anyone who wants to better understand the patterns of their love life. In The Art of Stillness, travel writer Pico Iyer reveals a counterintuitive truth: The more ways we have to connect, the more we seem desperate to unplug. The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings captures the thoughtful intelligence and the sheer whimsy of the world’s most inspired and future-looking buildings. Beyond Measure reveals how organizations can make huge changes with surprisingly small steps and ultimately transform their company culture. Chip Kidd’s Judge This is a playful look at the importance of first impressions—in design and in life—exposing the often invisible beauty and betrayal in simple design choices ones most of us never even think to notice. In How We’ll Live on Mars award-winning journalist Stephen Petranek makes the case that living on Mars is an essential back-up plan for humanity and will happen far sooner than we imagine. In the groundbreaking Why We Work Barry Schwartz dispels a deeply ingrained myth: The reason we work is primarily to get a paycheck. Pulitzer Prize–winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee reveals an urgent philosophy in The Laws of Medicine on the little-known principles that govern medicine. In Follow Your Gut scientist Rob Knight and journalist Brendan Buhler explain why the microscopic life inside us matters to everyone.

Powerful, timely messages collected in one convenient boxed set, an illuminating must-read from three of the leading business minds of our time and renowned TED speakers—Dan Ariely, Margaret Heffernan, and Barry Schwartz—that offers expert insight into our current economic times. Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations investigates the true nature of motivation, our partial blindness to the way it works, and a journey to try and bridge this gap. From the Zappos boardroom to a child’s allowance, Dan Ariely digs to the root of money motivation—how it works and how we can use this knowledge to approach disparate choices in our own lives. Along the way Ariely explores complex questions like why are we willing to part with money in some occasions and not others? Is it a good idea to try to motivate children by giving them money to do chores? When are bonuses most effective at work? In Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes, business leader Margaret Heffernan looks back over decades spent overseeing different organizations and comes to a counterintuitive conclusion: it’s the small shifts that have the greatest impact. From the CIA revolutionizing their intelligence gathering with one simple question, to an organization increasing their revenue by 15 million by instituting a short coffee break, Heffernan investigates all these scenarios and comes to the same conclusion: big improvements can come from simply making small changes. If the reason we work is primarily for a paycheck, why are so many people dissatisfied with their work, despite healthy compensation? And why do so many people find immense fulfillment and satisfaction through “menial” jobs? In Why We Work, Barry Schwartz takes us through hospitals and hair salons, auto plants and boardrooms, showing workers in all walks of life, highlighting the trends and patterns that lead to happiness in the workplace. Ultimately, Schwartz empowers us all to find great work by proving that the root of what drives us to good work can rarely be incentivized, and the cause of bad work is often an attempt to do just that.

Now in its Fifth Edition, Psychology of Learning and Behavior is one of the most highly regarded texts in its field.

From all corners of society we hear people ask: What''s become of honesty, loyalty, courage, hard work, compassion, discipline, and commitment? Dr. Schwartz contends that we are ready to consider a change in our traditional values and aspirations, but before we can re-establish them, we need to ask why they are disappearing.

On s''imagine qu''avoir l''embarras du choix est une garantie de liberté individuelle, donc de satisfaction. Or qu''il s''agisse de s''offrir un nouveau jean, de s''abonner à un opérateur téléphonique, de désigner son médecin traitant ou de placer ses économies, toute décision est devenue affreusement compliquée dans les sociétés occidentales. Analysant ce phénomène moderne, Barry Schwartz dresse ici un constat surprenant : le " trop de choix " se révèle néfaste pour notre bien-être - et, bien sûr, pour notre porte-monnaie. Mais on peut y remédier. Pourquoi faire le bon choix est-il un exercice périlleux ? Peut-on encore résister aux sirènes de la consommation ? Comment déjouer les pièges des marques, des industriels et des médias ? Faut-il, en définitive, réduire l''éventail des possibles pour être heureux ? Un ouvrage militant, qui nous invite à exercer notre libre arbitre avec plus de discernement.