The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights

By Daniel Coleman

Information and research about how certain parts of the brain affect personality and how emotional intelligence might be more important than IQ.  For example, a person might be brilliant, but lack any sorts of communication skills, so they would be almost a hindrance in a work setting.

Interesting book, but pretty deep concerning brain functions.  I especially liked the part about creativity, persistence, and motivation --- the examples included why the founder of Google was more successful than other internet counterparts due to his intelligence combined with his personality traits.

Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior

By Leonard Mlidinow

The author researches how our unconscious mind/thoughts shade how we feel about the world around us.  Even when we believe we are being open-minded and neutral, our mind is always processing and influencing our relationships and life choices.

This may sound like a deep and slightly confusing subject, and it is --- people don't like to think of themselves as being unconsciously prejudiced against anything.  We float through life believing that we are intelligent human beings, fully capable of making rational choices.  That's what makes this book interesting.  It proves that we are influenced by how people look and what we are told, even when we try to be impartial.

Why Him? Why Her? Finding Real Love By Understanding Your Personality Type

By Helen Fisher

Why do we fall in love with certain people?  Why do we stay in love? What drives others away?  Our personality, along with our mate's personality, can determine how & why we are attracted to each other.

Fisher seems to be a very thorough and intelligent person.  She is an anthropologist, not a psychologist, and therefore takes a scientific view of relationships.  However, she says nothing new.  She even admits that her personality test is a modification of the Myers Briggs Test first created in the early 1960's... all she did was change the names to Explorer, Builder, Director, and Negotiator.

In the end, this just seemed like a Match.com ad, especially since they hired her to come up with a compatibility test.  Right there, I lost a little respect for the formula.  If Fisher had included more real life examples, it would have been more interesting.  Instead,  the book rehashes the same traits over & over.  Okay, we get it -- Explorers should stay clear of other Explorers, because someone has to stay home.  Negotiators should be wary of Directors, because they might lose their fun-loving spirit.  At the same time, Fisher never discourages any match... anyone can fall in love!  Then what's the point in reading this book?