Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious
Kindle
$16.50
Available instantly
Audible Logo Audiobook
$0.00
with membership trial
Hardcover
from $17.50
Paperback
$30.00
Audible Logo Your audiobook is waiting!
Enjoy a free trial on us
$0.00
  • Click above for unlimited listening to select audiobooks, Audible Originals, and podcasts.
  • One credit a month to pick any title from our entire premium selection — yours to keep (you'll use your first credit now).
  • You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
  • $14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel online anytime.
Learn more about membership
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
List Price: $27.25
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible’s Conditions Of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs

Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 443 ratings
See all formats and editions

In an eye-opening tour of the unconscious, as contemporary psychological science has redefined it, Timothy D. Wilson introduces us to a hidden mental world of judgments, feelings, and motives that introspection may never show us. This is not your psychoanalyst's unconscious. The adaptive unconscious that empirical psychology has revealed, and that Wilson describes, is much more than a repository of primative drives and conflict-ridden memories. It is a set of pervasive, sophisticated mental processes that size up our worlds, set goals, and initiate action, all while we are consciously thinking about something else. If we don't know ourselves -- our potentials, feelings, or motives -- it is most often, Wilson tells us, because we have developed a plausible story about ourselves that is out of touch with our adaptive unconscious. Citing evidence that too much introspection can actually do damage, Wilson makes the case for better ways of discovering our unconscious selves. If you want to know who you are or what you feel or what you're like, Wilson advises, pay attention to what you actually do and what other people think about you. Showing us an unconscious more powerful that Freud's, and even more pervasive in our daily life, Strangers to Ourselves marks a revolution in how we know ourselves. The book is published by Harvard University Press.

Previous page
  1. Listening Length
    8 hours and 31 minutes
  2. Author
    Timothy D. Wilson
  3. Narrator
    Joe Barrett
  4. Audible release date
    November 21, 2011
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    University Press Audiobooks
  7. ASIN
    B006BCJWZK
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
Next page

Read & Listen

Switch between reading the Kindle book & listening to the Audible audiobook with Whispersync for Voice.
Get the Audible audiobook for the reduced price of $7.49 after you buy the Kindle book.

Product details

Listening Length 8 hours and 31 minutes
Author Timothy D. Wilson
Narrator Joe Barrett
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date November 21, 2011
Publisher University Press Audiobooks
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B006BCJWZK
Best Sellers Rank #83,602 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#511 in Medical Cognitive Psychology
#538 in Medical Psychotherapy TA & NLP
#651 in Popular Psychology Psychotherapy

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
443 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

gjc
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent description of how minds work
Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2006
Verified Purchase
I've been a fan of Timothy Wilson's research in social psychology for quite some time. He has been an author or co-author on some classic studies and reviews in psychology - usually asking interesting questions, using clever research methods, and written with clarity. In particular, if you can get your hands on the following paper it will give you a good idea of what you'll see in this book: "Telling more than we can know: verbal reports of mental processes" in Psychological Review (1977) with Richard Nisbett.

In the first chapter "Freud's Genius, Freud's Myopia" Wilson compares modern and early psychological theories of the unconscious. Wilson argues that Freud made a great contribution to psychology by pointing out that we aren't always aware of our motives and thoughts, but that Freud's conceptualization of the unconsciousness was limited for many reasons. Wilson's view is of an information-processing unconscious that does much of the work needed to navigate us through the world without taxing our limited consciousness - unlike Freud's view of the unconscious as a reservoir of inappropriate thoughts and desires. Furthermore, Wilson's view is informed by much more, and more rigiourous, research than Freud's.

An interesting chapter in the middle of the book discusses people's ability - or lack there of - to predict how they will react emotionally to events. This chapter is a good introduction to the concept of "affective forecasting" for people who are unfamiliar with the topic. However, the more recent book by Wilson's research collaborator Daniel Gilbert ("Stumbling on Happiness") is a more thorough and up-to-date treatment of this subject.

In "Strangers to Ourselves" Wilson expands on some of his own research on the limits of introspection, as well as integrating ideas from other researchers. Wilson argues that because we cannot know ourselves via introspection that self-knowledge can be enhanced by understanding other people - an excellent point in my opinion as a psychologist. In the later chapters, Wilson blends his ideas about consciousness and self-knowledge with Jamie Pennibaker's research and theories into the effects of writing about emotional events.

This is a fantastic book and I'd highly recommend it to people with any level of background knowledge in psychology from novices to experts.
27 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Kostas Vergidis
4.0 out of 5 stars Very good and well written
Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2017
Verified Purchase
Very good and well written... provides useful insights about the brain that will help you re-evaluate how you view yourself.... some parts of the book seemed to be extra-long and less juicy than others but still highly recommended
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Gary C. Marfin
5.0 out of 5 stars Have you seen yourself lately?
Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2003
Verified Purchase
Strangers to Ourselves is a clearly written and important book identifying the various internal walls impeding self-knowledge and providing advice on how we might enhance our ability to surmount them. The former constitutes the more interesting aspect of Wilson's book. His contention is that "human personality resides in two places: in the adaptive unconscious and in the conscious construal of the self." The latter is often deceptive, the former inaccessible. Much of the difficulty we face in getting an accurate assessment of our self stems the existence of our "adaptive unconciousness," that set of mental processes that influence our behavior "behind the scenes," as it were. For all its important influence, our adaptive conciousness remains beyond the accessibility of our conscious. So, how are we to achieve his second objective; that of trying to improve our self-knowledge? On this question, Wilson does not abandon us, though he does concede that there are limits to what we can do. The development of self-narratives, trying to observe ourselves as though we were outside ourselves (like the mathematician who solved a problem he found otherwise intractable until he managed to transform himself as his friend, John Nash, and approach the problem from Nash's vantage point), and altering our behavior in advance of attitudinal change are among his proposals for deepening self-understanding. In all, an excellent source for the general reader to come to grips with him or herself. I know, if my adaptive unconciousness could reach me, that it would agree!
28 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
W. Cheung
5.0 out of 5 stars Who we really are
Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2011
Verified Purchase
Quoting numerous studies (22 pages of bibliography), Professor Wilson is able to convince the reader that there are important mental processes that take place without the active awareness of our conscious self. We harbor intentions, personalities, emotions, evaluations, and narratives that we are not conscious of. Meanwhile we also possess consious mental activities. These two (unconscious and conscious) groups of mental processes do not necessarily agree, but neither do they necessarily disagree. They serve different functions and essentially help the organism to survive.

But if our consious self develops goals consistent with the unconscious ones, according to the author (page 91, quoting a relevant study), we will have better emotional well-being. However, gaining insights towards our unconscious mind is not that simple, and the author suggests that "the trick is to gather enought information to develop an informed gut feeling and then not analyze that feeling too much." (page 172)

One of the most uplifting and useful pieces of advice given by Professor Wilson is that "changing our behavior to match our conscious conceptions of ourselves is ... a good way to bring about changes in the adaptive unconsiousness" (p. 212) We do not have to be prisoners to our primal instincts after all.

I also particularly resonate with him that an accurate, peaceful and credible self-narrative is of utmost importance. I am glad that he mentions, albeit indirectly, that religion can be one way of achieving this (see pages 141 and 220).

Revealing, profound, and inspiring. Five stars.
25 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
cjuncosa
4.0 out of 5 stars Gran libro sobre el inconsciente adaptativo
Reviewed in Spain on January 30, 2024
Verified Purchase
Bien estructurado, muy claro, con amenas descripciones de las apasionantes investigaciones psicológicas sobre los procesos no conscientes que constituyen la mayor parte de nuestra mente. El autor es un notable académico e investigador en psicología social.
Report
pfarah
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read!
Reviewed in Canada on July 21, 2019
Verified Purchase
Learned so much about the subconscious mind and has helped me understand myself and others.
Report
Girijesh Jha
5.0 out of 5 stars Good product
Reviewed in India on August 24, 2020
Verified Purchase
Good quality. Well handled. Must read!
Customer image
Girijesh Jha
5.0 out of 5 stars Good product
Reviewed in India on August 24, 2020
Good quality. Well handled. Must read!
Images in this review
Customer image Customer image
Customer imageCustomer image
Report
Marcelo Henrique
5.0 out of 5 stars Leitura imperdível!!!
Reviewed in Brazil on July 29, 2018
Verified Purchase
Livro muito bom. Bem escrito. Leitura obrigatória aos estudantes do "novo" inconsciente
2 people found this helpful
 Report
Client d'Amazon
4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting and easy to read
Reviewed in France on August 5, 2016
Verified Purchase
A post Freudian approach to the unconscious mind offering an explanation for much that was overlooked by Freud. Freud was a genius but still a product of the scientific advancement of his era. The unconscious mind is an amazing gift and we still know so little about it.

Wilson acknowledges the work of others and then takes the next step.
One person found this helpful
 Report