The Power Paradox

The Power Paradox

How We Gain and Lose Influence

Summary

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of The Power Paradox by Dacher Keltner, read by Kaleo Griffith.

A concise, paradigm-shifting account of the power dynamics that shape everyday life - from the board room to the dinner table, the playground to the bedroom

The Machiavellian view of power as a coercive force is one of the deepest currents in our culture, yet new psychological research reveals this vision to be dead wrong. Influence is gained instead through social intelligence and empathy - but ironically the seductions of power make us lose the very qualities that made us powerful in the first place. By drawing on fascinating case studies that debunk longstanding myths, Dacher Keltner illuminates this 'power paradox', revealing how it shapes not just boardrooms and elections but everyday relationships, and affects whether or not we will have an affair, break the law or find our purpose in life.

Reviews

  • Dacher Keltner is the most interesting psychologist in America. He's busy changing the minds of Americans about how power works, how inequality works. It's only a matter of time before his ideas spread everywhere. And unlike most psychologists I know, he's not a weirdo
    Michael Lewis, author of 'The Big Short', 'Flash Boys', and 'Boomerang'

About the author

Dacher Keltner

Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center. A renowned expert in the science of human emotion and consultant to Pixar's Inside Out, Dr Keltner studies compassion and awe, as well as issues of power, status, inequality and social class. He is the author of The Power Paradox and the bestselling Born to Be Good, and the co-editor of The Compassionate Instinct.
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