Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe
Home > Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe
Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe

Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe


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About the Book

Why do some things pass under the radar of our attention, but other things capture our interest? Why do some religions catch on and others fade away? What makes a story, a movie, or a book riveting? Why do some people keep watching the news even though it makes them anxious?

The past 20 years have seen a remarkable flourishing of scientific research into exactly these kinds of questions. Professor Jim Davies' fascinating and highly accessible book, Riveted, reveals the evolutionary underpinnings of why we find things compelling, from art to religion and from sports to superstition. Compelling things fit our minds like keys in the ignition, turning us on and keeping us running, and yet we are often unaware of what makes these keys fit. What we like and don't like is almost always determined by subconscious forces, and when we try to consciously predict our own preferences we're often wrong. In one study of speed dating, people were asked what kinds of partners they found attractive. When the results came back, the participants' answers before the exercise had no correlation with who they actually found attractive in person! We are beginning to understand just how much the brain makes our decisions for us: we are rewarded with a rush of pleasure when we detect patterns, as the brain thinks we've discovered something significant; the mind urges us to linger on the news channel or rubberneck an accident in case it might pick up important survival information; it even pushes us to pick up People magazine in order to find out about changes in the social structure.

Drawing on work from philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, psychology, economics, computer science, and biology, Davies offers a comprehensive explanation to show that in spite of the differences between the many things that we find compelling, they have similar effects on our minds and brains.


About the Author: Jim Davies is a professor at the Institute of Cognitive Science of Carleton University, and director of the Science of Imagination Laboratory. He has been featured in Skeptic and Nautilus magazines, and has presented at Pecha Kucha Ottawa and TEDx on his theories of imagination. He writes a Psychology Today blog called The Science of Imagination. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.


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Product Details
  • ISBN-13: 9781137279019
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Press
  • Publisher Imprint: St. Martin's Press
  • Depth: 25
  • Language: English
  • Returnable: N
  • Spine Width: 26 mm
  • Weight: 530 gr
  • ISBN-10: 113727901X
  • Publisher Date: 05 Aug 2014
  • Binding: Hardback
  • Height: 247 mm
  • No of Pages: 288
  • Series Title: English
  • Sub Title: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One With the Universe
  • Width: 162 mm


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    BoxerLover2 - 5 Days ago
    A Thrilling But Totally Believable Murder Mystery

    Read this in one evening. I had planned to do other things with my day, but it was impossible to put down. Every time I tried, I was drawn back to it in less than 5 minutes. I sobbed my eyes out the entire last 100 pages. Highly recommend!

    BoxerLover2 - 5 Days ago
    A Thrilling But Totally Believable Murder Mystery

    Read this in one evening. I had planned to do other things with my day, but it was impossible to put down. Every time I tried, I was drawn back to it in less than 5 minutes. I sobbed my eyes out the entire last 100 pages. Highly recommend!


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