Social Science Research

While millions of consumers carry on unaware, powerful companies are racing to gain more knowledge and data than anyone, including any government, has ever had. The goal is to understand consumer behavior and desires, from mundane matters to our most private and intimate affairs. This massive trove of data represents an immense prize for these companies. In economic terms it is one of the most valuable assets on the planet.

We live in an age of extreme corporate concentration, in which global industries are controlled by just a few giant firms - big banks, big pharma, and big tech, just to name a few. But concern over what Louis Brandeis called the "curse of bigness" can no longer remain the province of specialist lawyers and economists, for it has spilled over into policy and politics, even threatening democracy itself.

This audiobook explains the divine female principle as the source of creation - both metaphysically and physically; the feminine dual nature of Isis with Nephthys; the relationship (and oneness) of the female and male principles; the numerology of Isis and Osiris; Isis’ role as the Virgin Mother; explanation of about 20 female deities as the manifestations of the feminine attributes; the role of Isis’ ideology throughout the world; the allegory of Isis, Osiris, and Horus; and much more. This book will fill both the mind with comprehensive information as well as the heart.

For the last 10 years, psychologist Sam Gosling has been studying how people project (and protect) their inner selves. By exploring our private worlds (desks, bedrooms, even our clothes and our cars), he shows not only how we showcase our personalities in unexpected - and unplanned - ways, but also how we create personality in the first place, communicate it to others, and interpret the world around us.

Lee Eisenberg's The Number hit the New York Times best-seller list and became an instant classic with those wanting to learn more about retiring comfortably. Here he investigates the forces that compel Americans to shop till they drop. A timely exploration, Shoptimism takes a critical look at an often downplayed aspect of American economic prosperity.

Ever notice that all watch ads show 10:10 as the time? Or that all fast-food restaurants use red or yellow in their logos? Or that certain stores are always having a sale? You may not be aware of these details, yet they’ve been influencing you all along. Every time you purchase, swipe, or click, marketers are able to more accurately predict your behavior. These days, brands know more about you than you know about yourself. Blindsight is here to change that.

In this endlessly fascinating book, New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant. Groups are better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.

From New York Times business reporter Nelson D. Schwartz comes a gripping investigation of how a virtual velvet rope divides Americans in every arena of life, creating a friction-free existence for those with money on one side and a Darwinian struggle for the middle class on the other side.

Significant changes are necessary for the Black community. Implementing those changes requires new ways of thinking and new ways of doing. Those who choose to listen to this audiobook know that previous ways to solve the problems have not sufficed, despite a plethora of information, strategy, and education. We still prefer to dismiss them. Why? The Black Algorithm is a new way of thinking and doing. Utilize these strategies in your community and put them to work. There isn't time for excuses, drama, gossip, or time-wasting anymore.

Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), challenges us to grasp the profound political and cultural consequences of a new reality - that America is no longer a majority white Christian nation.

"Citizens" opens up a new way of understanding ourselves and shows us what we must do to survive and thrive – as individuals, as organisations, as nations, even as a species. Jon Alexander's consultancy, the New Citizenship Project, has helped revitalise some of Britain's biggest organisations such as the Co-op, The Guardian and the National Trust. Here, with the New York Times bestselling writer Ariane Conrad, he shows how human history has moved from the Subject Story of kings and empires to the current Consumer Story.

Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we are all susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes can make us poor and unhealthy. We often make bad decisions about education, personal finance, health care, family, and the environment.

An introduction for everyone. In this rich, fascinating—surprisingly accessible—introduction, leading expert Eric Siegel reveals how predictive analytics (aka machine learning) works, and how it affects everyone every day. Rather than a "how to" for hands-on techies, the book serves lay listeners and experts alike by covering new case studies and the latest state-of-the-art techniques.

For centuries, economics was dominated by the idea that we are rational individuals who optimize our own “utility”. Then, in the 1970s, psychologists demonstrated that the reality is a lot messier. We don’t really know what our utility is, and we care about people other than ourselves. We are susceptible to external nudges. And far from being perfectly rational, we are prone to “cognitive biases” with complex effects on decision-making, such as forgetting to prepare for retirement.

Encounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were, for centuries, at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science.

Gay has made many important revisions to keep her foundational, award-winning text relevant for today's diverse student population, including: new research on culturally responsive teaching, a focus on a broader range of racial and ethnic groups, and consideration of additional issues related to early childhood education. This book demonstrates that all students will perform better on multiple measures of achievement when teaching is filtered through students' own cultural experiences.

Unlock the mysteries of life after death and explore the enlightening discoveries of a private investigator's 15-year investigation. This book is a comprehensive resource answering 150 of the most crucial questions about what happens when we die. Now you can delve into the life-changing insights we learn from near-death experiences, after-death communications, spirit contact through mediums, past lives, past-life memories, past-life and between-lives regressions, out-of-body experiences, soul pre-birth planning, dream visitations, shared-death experiences, and so much more.

Revolutionary Wealth is about how tomorrow's wealth will be created, and who will get it and how. But twenty-first-century wealth, according to the Tofflers, is not just about money, and cannot be understood in terms of industrial-age economics.

How does the brain work? How different is a human brain from other creatures' brains? Is the human brain still evolving? In this fascinating book, Michael O'Shea provides a non-technical introduction to the main issues and findings in current brain research, and gives a sense of how neuroscience addresses questions about the relationship between the brain and the mind.

Social scientists have adopted the practices of more traditional scientists in the past few decades - using randomized trials to design policies aimed at improving educational levels, lowering crime rates, elevating employment rates, and improving living standards among the poor. Andrew Leigh and P.J. Ochlan bring the lives of these radical researchers to life as their experiments to overturn conventional wisdom lead to breakthroughs like finding the cure for scurvy and discovering what policies really improve literacy rates.