Science and Psychology

“Noise” in this context is the unwanted variability in human judgment that causes different people, or even the same person at different times, to make inconsistent decisions in identical situations. Kahneman, along with co-authors Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein, distinguishes noise from bias, and explains how both contribute to errors in fields like law, medicine, hiring, and forecasting. The book discusses why noise is often overlooked, how to measure it, and strategies for reducing it, such as decision hygiene and structured processes.

An engaging introduction to embodied cognition, the idea that how we see and interpret the world is shaped by our bodies, abilities, and environment. Proffitt, a leading researcher in the field, demonstrates how factors such as fatigue, physical strength, emotional state, and even social connection influence perception, making a hill appear steeper or a distance seem longer. Embodied cognition is a broad field that influences many aspects of what we do as coaches and athletes, and this book ties into many others that explore different aspects of the field. For instance, the action-specific approach in Perception aligns with J.J. Gibson’s concept of affordances, found in The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, and Alva Noë’s Action in Perception, both of which discuss how perception is inseparable from action possibilities. It also complements George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Philosophy in the Flesh and Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind, which extend the embodied mind framework into language, thought, and learning. For readers interested in practical/athlete-specific applications, Sian Beilock’s How the Body Knows Its Mind offers a performance-oriented perspective.

An outstanding book that examines why some people survive life-threatening situations while others do not, using real-life survival stories alongside insights from neuroscience, psychology, and decision-making research. Gonzales details the mental and emotional patterns that shape how people respond under extreme stress, from plane crashes to mountaineering accidents. He shows that survival is rarely about brute strength or skill alone. It’s about mindset: the ability to stay calm, adapt quickly, and make sound decisions when instinct and panic push toward the opposite.

Dan Ariely is a leading expert in the field of rationality and reasoning, and he’s got several good books on why we, as a species, are not nearly as rational as we’d like to think. Predictably Irrational lays the groundwork, so start there. It covers the hidden cognitive biases and emotional triggers that drive our everyday choices, from shopping habits to moral compromises. Irrationally Yours builds on this foundation, using Ariely’s “Ask Ariely” columns to address real-life questions that illuminate the quirks of human judgment in love, work, and money. Misbelief moves into darker terrain, focusing on how rational people can come to embrace falsehoods, conspiracies, and extreme ideas. Together, they’ll help you to understand mental blind spots while gaining insight into navigating them.

This is a memorable and fascinating book, and for those in SOF or other high-stress, high-stakes occupations like trauma medicine, it will help you make sense of many of the people in your field and probably yourself. Dutton investigates the paradoxical traits of psychopathy: fearlessness, charm, decisiveness, and mental toughness, and how, in the right context, they can be assets rather than liabilities. He uses examples ranging from special operators to surgeons and monks to explain how psychopathic qualities exist on a spectrum, and that certain doses can fuel success in high-pressure, high-stakes environments. His thesis argues against the cultural caricature of the psychopath as purely destructive, by illustrating how traits often linked to moral danger can, when tempered by empathy and self-control, enhance performance, resilience, and leadership.

This is a useful book for coaches or anyone trying to understand motivation, either within yourself or in those you’re working with. It shows how the traditional carrot-and-stick approach to motivation, either dangling rewards or threatening punishment, often backfires in the modern workplace. Pink outlines three core drivers: autonomy (the desire to direct our own lives), mastery (the urge to continually improve at something that matters), and purpose (the yearning to do what we do in service of something larger than ourselves). He explains how these intrinsic motivators fuel creativity, engagement, and sustained performance, and offers practical strategies for designing environments, whether in business, education, or personal projects, that unlock people’s best work.

This book shows how mindfulness and meditation can rewire the brain toward greater happiness, compassion, and resilience. Hanson explains that positive mental states such as calm, love, and clarity strengthen neural circuits, while stress and negativity can weaken them. It’s a good illustration of how seemingly abstract or woo ideas like Buddhist minfulness practices are rooted in neuroscience. It’ll help you understand how mindfulness practice can help train attention, regulate emotions, and cultivate inner calm or peace.

This book will help you understand dopamine, and how it influences our motivations and sources of pleasure. I’ve still got a notebook somewhere full of notes and drawings of rat brains that I made when I was reading it on my downtime in Baghdad. It’s an in-depth look at the brain’s reward circuitry and why certain activities, ranging from eating chocolate to taking drugs to falling in love, can feel so irresistibly good. Linden explains how pleasure arises from the release of dopamine in the brain, and why this system evolved to guide survival behaviors like eating and reproduction, yet can be hijacked by addictive substances and habits. It’s a guide to the science behind cravings, compulsion, and the fine line between healthy enjoyment and destructive dependence.

Play is an overlooked yet important concept, for reasons ranging from how we learn and develop skills while shaping the stress response associated with those skills, to simply being a crucial component of a meaningful life that’s often lacking in our society. Here, Ackerman looks at the human impulse to engage in experiences so immersive, challenging, and transcendent that they dissolve the boundaries of self-awareness. She defines “deep play” as any activity carried out for its own sake that demands complete attention, yields intense satisfaction, and often carries elements of risk, creativity, or heightened meaning. Although play often happens for its own sake, it’s also not frivolous. We need it. Having a better understanding of it can make you a better athlete and a happier, more resilient person.

A deep dive into the neuroscience and philosophy of free will, in which Sapolsky, a neuroendocrinologist, primatologist, and Stanford professor, argues that our choices are entirely the product of biology, genetics, and environment. He synthesizes decades of research in brain science, psychology, and behavior to make the case that free will is an illusion, dismantling common intuitions about agency and moral responsibility. Sapolsky challenges readers to confront the implications of a fully determined universe, from the justice system to personal relationships, while proposing ways society could adapt if we took his conclusion seriously. The book has drawn criticism for what some see as an overly uncompromising determinism, for underestimating compatibilist arguments that preserve moral responsibility, and for offering limited practical guidance on how to implement his vision. But, his lens can be a valuable way to reframe other works, such as Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, where migration, violence, and policy failures can be viewed not simply as products of individual choice but as inevitable outcomes of intersecting social, economic, and biological forces. In that sense, Determined can function as both a standalone argument and a conceptual toolkit for interpreting complex human stories elsewhere on this list. Stepping back from Determined, it’s easy to see how crude interpretations of determinism can distort criminal justice. One version decriminalizes many minor offenses, altering the causal chain in ways that increase crime and weaken social cohesion. The opposite distortion plays out in authoritarian systems, where law is applied unequally, corruption shields the powerful, and mass incarceration becomes a tool of control.

A relatively early work (from 2011) on the neuroscience of the unconscious mind and how hidden brain processes shape perception, decision-making, and behavior, which is a bit more accessible than Sapolsky's Determined. Eagleman uses case studies from neuroscience, psychology, and law to show how the brain’s hidden systems shape perception, decision-making, and behavior, often in ways that conflict with our conscious intentions. He also examines the implications for free will, moral responsibility, and the justice system, making the case that understanding the brain’s unseen operations is essential to understanding ourselves. If you’ve read Determined, Incognito won’t overturn Sapolsky’s conclusion, but it will give you vivid, accessible examples of the mechanisms behind it; how the brain filters reality, why we misjudge risk, how reflexes can “decide” before conscious thought, and why memory is unreliable. Eagleman’s style is lighter and more anecdotal, making it a good complement that fleshes out the neuroscience in everyday terms rather than the deterministic argument as a whole.

Think of this as a summary or tl;dr version of Incognito and Determined. It’s short, polemical, and laser-focused on making the case that free will, as most people conceive it, is an illusion. Harris writes in a direct, declarative style aimed at persuading the reader of a philosophical position, with neuroscience serving as supporting evidence. It’s much more about the conclusion than supporting science and he doesn’t show his work to nearly the depth of Eagleman or, in particular, Sapolsky.

On the must-read list for parents and teenagers. This one explores how the rapid shift from play-based, real-world childhoods to smartphone-centered adolescence has fueled a surge in anxiety, depression, and fragility. Haidt draws on psychology and social science to explain the roots of this mental health crisis and offers a path toward rebuilding resilience in the next generation.