Ask HN: How do I self learn psychology? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do I self learn psychology?

9 pointssidyapa10 comments

Interesting thought I came across recently : "If you are building a business (which is for humans to use obviously), you'll have an unfair advantage knowing about human psychology"

If I am to start learning about human behaviour, where should I be starting and what path should I be taking?

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Here's what I liked, science from an experienced practitioner and teacher. The 2017 lectures on the Five factor model of personality:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22J3VaeABQApSdW8X71I...

Also Never split the difference by Chris Voss for negotiating, practical psychology.

Hi,

You can start by learning about yourself. This article here https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/three-actionable-ins... can set you on your path.

Thanks

Are you trying to learn just business-relevant psychology? Or psychology in general?

Psychology in general for start

I'd start with https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology And https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Psychology_Wiki As frameworks and quick references to concepts. I'd go over an introductory psychology textbook, if you go deeper preferably a biopsychology or neuropsychology book. You need to def know the material conditions which can only be gotten doing a bit of the life science part on the nervous system and (breach psychiatry) while doing it get some understanding of drug effects and what they aim to do and actually do) but really that might be going to deep into medical application side. Ultimately you might consider just above links and maybe some sources on therapy types and behavioral psych. It can be steep and a deep end into pharmaco or cognitive science parts imo.

Understand the basics of evolution and incentives.

Favorite books for practical psychology - Thinking Fast and Slow, How to win friends and influence people.

Psychology by Bernstein, Penner, Clarke-Stewart, and Roy is an approachable, comprehensive introduction.

You should start by starting a business it will teach you all you need to know about psychology .... and some more :) I'm doing business and psychology/self development for the last 7 years and unfortunately, the idea of being good at business because somebody is good at understanding human behavior has huge flaws.

Read history, and see what humans do over and over and over again.

Check out Sapolsky's human behavior lectures on YouTube.

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