An interesting and entertaining overview of the subject. Well-written and engaging. I learned a number of fun facts.

I really enjoyed this book. I think this would be a great add to college psych class and/or for any level of psych knowledge, whether that be beginner or professional. Very unsightly and engaging.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Ecco for gifting me with an advance reader's copy of this book.

I'm not sure what I was expecting of this book when I requested it, but I certainly wasn't expecting it to be a Psych101 textbook. For that reason, I slept on it for quite a while after I received it. I wish I hadn't! Man! This textbook was waaaay more interesting and readable than any of the ones I had in school!

Psychology was one of my majors in college--meaning the topic interests me. But I graduated in 2007, and It's been a while since I did anything remotely psych related. This book felt like a very interesting and comprehensive introductory treatise on the topic, presented in a very approachable and, dare-i-say, humorous way. It's easy to get bogged down in the facts or the case studies with this type of book, but this one avoided that trap. I appreciated that Bloom seemed to take extra steps to make sure this read somewhat like a fiction.

Anyway, I will say that the book is not too detailed or in-depth, so if you are looking for something more advanced this probably isn't for you. For me, it was a perfect reminder of why I chose to study this topic way back when-- even if I pursued a different career.

Thank you to Netgalley and Ecco for this Advanced Readers Copy of Psych by Paul Bloom. It was very well written and researched!

When I was in college, one of the classes that pleasantly surprised me was my psychology class. I found it fascinating. So when I saw Paul Bloom's new book "Psych", I was immediately interested. And I enjoyed it immensely. Bloom did a great job with his approach and making this topic relevant and relatable. His sense of humor is also very enjoyable and kept me entertained throughout this book.

This book has done an excellent job of introducing me to the world of psychology! Prior to this book I knew the basics (Freud, Skinner, etc.) of psych and now I feel like I'm equipped with a far better understanding of this fascinating field of study. Like me, I believe readers will find that they not only walk away more knowledge about the various streams of psych, but they'll also be left with genuine feelings of enthusiasm and awe about the topic.

If you missed taking Psych 101 and even 102 in college, here's the book to make up for it. Comprehensive and readable, Psych enlightens the technical knowledge with real life illustrations that keep the reader engaged. No need to pay tuition to begin to understand such everyday situations as why there are terrible twos, whether or not your distraught neighbor could actually be dangerous to themselves or others, and how and when to learn a foreign language (in case you missed it when you were two and it was really easy). Learn how the brain and the mind interact, a bit of the history of psychology, and how recent advances in technology have provided a much deeper knowledge of how humans function, or disfunction.

This is a fantastic book. Very approachable introduction to psychology. It was fun to be able to get a preview into an incredibly popular Yale course. What I found memorable about this book was how he worked to make psychology relevant to modern issues, as opposed to something dusty and irrelevant.

Finished ✔️ Psych by Paul Bloom

5 ⭐️‘s
It’s very interesting what you learn about your mind
A very new perspective on the modern science of psychology
This book is based on one of Yale’s most popular courses of all time

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Basically, it is a college course in psychology in one book. This sounds cool because I thought that it might be directed toward an average reader. I have never been so painfully wrong. Painfully, mostly because my psychology-loving brain was brought into trans after a couple of pages. I do not remember much from this book, yet I do remember almost everything from my college textbook. Mostly because the author decided to diverge more than was necessary, making discussion and argument towards things that supposedly nobody does, hence my thought about who should be an audience. This surprises me even more because allegedly he is a college professor. From where I stand, I'd hate learning from him. Instead of having a nice compendium of psych knowledge, there are much of random facts that are explained on endless pages at the time with no conclusion in sight. I think I'd rather read research papers.

As much, as I requested this book from @netgalley I do not recommend it unless you are an expert in the matter and want to build on the knowledge and experience you already have.

If you have any interest in the scientific processes of our brain and behavior then this is the book for you. It gives lots of scientific evidence to back up what the author writes. I could tell there was tons of research done by Bloom which was super impressive. I preferred the parts that focused more on the history of psychology. I can definitely see myself using the information in this book in my future therapy practice.

I enjoyed this book. Its main strength was the clear explanations of psychology when explanations were known, and great discussions where knowledge was lacking. The tone is conversational and witty. Bloom was very good at separating fact from fiction and honestly discussing the strengths and weaknesses of psychology. Bloom also had good discussions of contradictory data that never left me confused. In general, his discussions about how science works are excellent. Bloom made great use of quotes and humor - I even laughed out loud a couple of times. This is great science writing. Thank you to Netgalley and Ecco for the digital review copy.

I am so glad that given the length of this book, it did not feel like a textbook or a lecture! It was educational, full of great facts and research to back up what Bloom is talking/writing about. It's a great way for me to better understand psychology and how the psyche works, what makes and breaks the human psyche. Highly recommend this book for anyone to be honest!

Psych: The Story of the Human Mind by Paul Bloom is an expansive look at how the brain works. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first started reading this but quickly became immersed in Bloom’s easy and engaging writing style.

Bloom starts off talking about the brain as matter including the anatomy of the brain and what happens if parts of the brain are damaged. He works his way into more abstract topics like memory, logic, and the formation of the brain of a child. I especially found the parts about logical fallacies and why we believe them interesting.

This book covers a wide range of information regarding the brain and psychology, much too broad to describe it all here in this review. Bloom did an impressive job of presenting both sides of an issue, including weaknesses of certain experiments.

This is an excellent read for anyone interested in the brain and psychology. Even though many of these topics were familiar to me, this book was structured in such a way that my limited knowledge grew into a deeper understanding.

Psych: The Story of the Human Mind by psychology professor Paul Bloom is a distillation of the lessons of his Pscyh 101 course. It is a course he's taught at top universities and was broadly popular. The book is organized into five sections: Foundations, Thinking, Appetites, Relations, and Differences. Bloom focuses on high impact psychological findings and concepts and the ideas of famous psychologists. The work is meaty, coming in at roughly 450 pages, but there are of course things that have to be omitted. However, I think Bloom's chosen selections will be resonant and meaningful to his target audience, curious lay readers. Plus, he bravely and delicately addresses controversial ideas and findings and gently illustrates which models have withstood scientific reappraisal and which haven't.

I guess I am a bit of a Paul Bloom fan. I've read three of Bloom's other books (Against Empathy, Just Babies, and The Sweet Spot) and have found them eminently accessible yet thoughtful. I enjoy his writing and share many of his interests and ideas. I often return to things his work introduced me too to learn more about them. This remains true with Psych. Given that I am fairly well-read in psychology content and have read his other books, much of the content was familiar to me. Despite this, I wasn't bored by the work at all. Bloom often quotes from the work of others I've read too: Harden, Pinker, Ritchie, and Henrich. This tended to serve as a nicer refresher of those works. Bloom also filled in his own perspective on their ideas, which was enriching. So I think many readers can enjoy Psych even though it may be best suited for those with less exposure to psychology.

I most enjoyed the early and late portions of the book. I felt those were highest yield and will matter most to audiences. It may also just be a function of what I am most interested in. The only thing that I think the work needed more of was methodology and statistics. Bloom does discuss metascientific concepts like p-hacking and HARKing in order to report on the replication crisis that especially afflicts the field of social psychology (he also touches on conditional probability), but it would be helpful for lay readers to have some more on the basics of experimental design, inference testing, effect sizes, and factor analysis where relevant to topics.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in a good introduction to modern psychology. It will help many shake off some old but popular ideas from the likes of Freud and Skinner, and it will introduce many to exciting science about the mind.

Thank you to Ecco and to Net Galley for this eARC. This text will be published on February 28, 2023.

As a teacher of a trauma theory class, I wanted to find a text that offered an introduction to psychology for my students. At the moment, I tend to use Bessel van der Kolk's "The Body Keeps the Score." While the beginning of this book offered potential, I found that by the end of this book, I was entertained, but there are some major flaws within the text.

While I appreciate the book is well-researched and contains extensive notes, one of the areas in the text I took issue with was the chapters on lust and relationships. Though the second half of the book does a nice job discussing the nature of LGBTQ+ relationships, this chapter really negates any sexual act outside of procreation. It also makes a short nod to the debate about gender dysphoria as a diagnosis, but largely ignores trans populations. I recognize that this is meant to be a generalized overview, but I couldn't use this text in my class because of these portions, which largely ignore their formative experiences.

I also thought the section of abnormal psychology was way too brief. Good for old-school psychology, but not contemporary enough for me.

This is a very accessible book about psychology. It feels like a conversation and not a lecture. Very comprehensive.

I first heard of Paul Bloom when listening to some of his lectures on YouTube. I found his talks on the brain fascinated and well organized so I decided to read his book.
His book Psych is a very good comprehensive coverage of psychology however it covers things you may not find in Psych 101. Consciousness for instance and his view on what Consciousness is is so interesting and fascinating. He debunks a lot of common theories of psychology running around.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this book and encourage anyone interested in psychology or Neuroscience to buy this book.
Thank to Netgalley and the publisher for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is a brilliant, comprehensive, entertaining overview of the current state of the field of psychology. In a witty, conversational style, it reveals new information while debunking some widely held beliefs. I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in psychology and neuroscience.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

The author of this book, Paul Bloom, is a professor at Yale. The book is largely based on his Introduction to Psychology course. The book dives into every conceivable topic of
psychology, from consciousness to language to mental illness. I found the explanations of the way the brain develops in childhood to be particularly interesting. The book is well-researched and contains a ton of valuable information, backed up by peer-reviewed research.