Everyday Mind Reading: Understanding What Other People Think and Feel (Hardcover)

by William Ickes (Author), Elliot Aronson (Author) "Richard Burton was one of the most intrusive people ever born..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, William Ickes, Carol Marangoni (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"...a readable analysis of how people empathize with the thoughts and feelings of others...recommended." -- Choice: Current Review for Academic Libraries, April 2004

"...students considering social psychology as a career could put it on their 'must read' list..." -- Science Books & Films, April 2004

"how, when, why and to what extent we are able to infer the content of other people's thoughts and feelings." -- SirReadALot.org, Nobember 26, 2003

Product Description
"We humans are social animals and, as such, it is natural for us to empathize with one another--to look and listen carefully and try to figure out what other folks are thinking and feeling. . . . William Ickes is a serious scientist who has been studying this phenomenon for many years. . . .Some of the findings in this book square with common sense, but there are a great many surprises as well." -- Elliot Aronson, from the foreword

Is there research evidence for "women's intuition"?
Does telepathy play a role in everyday mind reading?
Are longer-married people able to read each other's minds better than newlyweds?
Why do twins tend to have similar thoughts and feelings?
Can people improve their ability to read other people's minds?

After spending ten years studying people's behavior in social interactions, psychologist William Ickes discovered a way to measure how well they are able to "read" other people's thoughts and feelings. EVERYDAY MIND READING tells the story of how this discovery led the author and his colleagues on a fifteen-year research odyssey that produced sometimes-startling scientific answers to these and many other intriguing questions.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (November 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591021197
• ISBN-13: 978-1591021193
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #655,713 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant book, December 11, 2003

By	Jean Decety (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Bill Ickes has written a brilliant book in such a way that ordinary mortals can immediately grasp its content and never be bored.

The book explores in rich and fascinating detail human empathy. The book is written in a way that successfully blend the subtlety of observation with the rigor of experimentation and excites the reader at almost every page. It is both an outstanding scientific and literary achievement.

This book is also full of surprises. There are several important aspects related to empathic understanding that the research done by Ickes and collaborators demonstrates against our conventional wisdom.

I learned a lot reading this book. And I strongly recommend everyone interested in social cognition, human relationships, whether you are involved in academic research or simply intrigued by how and why we come to understand others to do the same.

16 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Beware, May 30, 2006

By	William Henry (MS, USA.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

2 stars for being misleading.
Do not buy this book if you are looking for practices and techniques for "Everyday Mind Reading." I saw the title and read the "look inside" option amazon gives you. It was extremely interesting(about the life of Richard Burton) but that's about it.
The book is good for reading about results of experiments and theories. But no everyday practice...
you have been warned.

9 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very boring and full of unuseful information, September 10, 2006

By	A. Sarky "ARS." (Mexico City) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It is full of unuseful information. Seems like if the author just wanted to fill pages with information that nobody really cares about to justify the printing of his book. This book feels like if you're reading a college work paper where the student want to impress the teacher with a very long paper but without any real conclusions. I think you can summarize this book in no more than 4 pages. One of the conclusions will be: "good friends can read their feelings/emotions better than strangers". Do you really need to read how a "scientific" experiment was done to get to that conclusion?