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Popular

Popular

Why being liked is the secret to greater success and happiness

Summary

Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Popular, written and read by Mitch Prinstein.

Who doesn't want to be more popular? Surely a person's popularity - be it at school, work or socially - is the best predictor of how happy and successful they can be?

The truth is actually much more complex. This impeccably researched and highly entertaining book presents two very distinct types of popularity and shows how only one of them will get us where we want.

Based on 20 years of research and written by popularity expert Mitch Prinstein, Popular investigates the science of what popularity is, why we care about it so much – even if we don’t think we do – what kind of popularity is worth caring about, and if we can still get the popularity we want, even if we didn't have it when we were younger. Prinstein also offers important insights on parenting for popularity, explaining why supporting children in the right way will help them cultivate the right kind of popularity and help shape them positively as adults in the future.

Reviews

  • “We have all imprinted emotionally on the vicissitudes of our teenage years. Mitch Prinstein, in this compelling, page-turner, tells us why and also how we can shed the skins of our adolescence. Even better he tells us how our children can achieve meaningful popularity. A science-based Dale Carnegie.”
    Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D. Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania

About the author

Mitch Prinstein

Mitch Prinstein Ph.D. is the John Van Seters Distinguished Professor of Psychology and the Director of Clinical Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mitch’s Peer Relations Lab, first at Yale University and then UNC, has conducted research on popularity and peer relations for almost 20 years. His classes on popularity are so popular that people queue down the halls to get in and he has to use the largest lecture halls to hold them. Mitch also serves as the President for the Society for the Science of Clinical Psychology and is a former member of the Board of Directors for the American Psychological Association.
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