Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Print Price: $40.95

Format:
Hardback
288 pp.
156 mm x 235 mm

ISBN-13:
9780190699918

Publication date:
August 2019

Imprint: OUP US

Possessed

Why We Want More Than We Need

Bruce Hood

Ownership is on most people's lips these days, or at least the lack of ownership. Everywhere people seem to be fighting over what is theirs. They want to take back their property, their lands, their liberty, their bodies, their identity, and their right to do what they want. These demands are quite remarkable when you consider that ownership is not an observable property but rather an abstract concept. And yet this abstract concept controls just about everything we do, and rarely do we stop to consider how it rules our lives. Ownership even explains the anger and political turmoil that is currently sweeping over Western democracies: people feel they have had something taken away, something they used to own in the past and want back.

Possessed is the first accessible book to consider the psychological origins and future of ownership in a rapidly changing world. It reveals how we are compelled to accumulate possessions in a relentless drive to seek status and approval by signalling our values to others by what we own. It traces the history of ownership but looks to the future as our drive to own will need to adapt to environmental and technological change.

Readership : General public, as well as individuals interested in the concept of ownership and possession as viewed through an evolutionary and psychological lens.

Prologue
1. Do We Really Own Anything?
2. Why Do We Need To Own?
3. Origins of Ownership
4. It's Only Fair
5. Possessions, Wealth & Happiness
6. We Are What We Own
7. Sacred Stuff
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
References

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Bruce Hood is Professor of Developmental Psychology in Society at Bristol University. He undertook his Ph.D. at Cambridge followed by appointments at University College London, MIT and a faculty professor at Harvard. He researches child development, origins of superstition and self-identity. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Society, the Royal Institution of Great Britain and the British Psychological Society. Bruce gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 2011 and has written three popular science books - SuperSense,The Self Illusion andThe Domesticated Brain. He is working on his fourth book about ownership. Bruce is the founder of Speakezee - the world's largest academic speaker platform connecting experts with audiences.

The Phenomenal Self - Barry Dainton
Self Control in Society, Mind, and Brain - Edited by Ran Hassin, Kevin Ochsner and Edited by Yaacov Trope
The Phenomenal Self - Barry Dainton

Special Features

A highly readable account of our drive to acquire possessions
A revealing view of ownership that sheds light on the growing political turmoil sweeping Western democracies
A creative synergy of psychology, biology, history, economics and politics
From the best-selling author of The Self Illusion