Book publications

Books written by experts in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science.

Below you can find a selection of some of the key books from experts in the department over the last few years, covering topics across social psychology and behavioural science.

You can also view a full list of publications from the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science (dating back to 1985) on LSE Research Online.

Wellbeing and Policy: Evidence for Action
Edited by Marie Briguglio, Natalia Czap and Kate Laffan
As wellbeing becomes an increasingly explicit policy goal in countries across the world, the demand for evidence upon which to base intervention is growing. Featuring 41 contributing authors from 18 countries, this book surveys and synthesizes recent developments in wellbeing science and policy to highlight key lessons learned and to offer actionable insights for policy-making.
Beliefism: How to stop hating the people we disagree with
By Paul Dolan
We might like to think that we’re tolerant, but many of us struggle to engage with people whose opinions differ strongly from our own-even if they might have something useful to contribute to the debate. That means we’re falling victim to what Paul Dolan defines as Beliefism: discrimination against those with different beliefs to us. In this book, Dolan shows how more tolerance is possible “by design”.
Why We're Getting Poorer
By Cahal Moran
This book delves into the key topics in economics – money, globalisation, inequality, climate change and growth – showing that what we think we know about these things is wrong, and teaching us what we really need to know.
Categories in Social Interaction
By Kevin A. Whitehead, Elizabeth Stokoe and Geoffrey Raymond
This book investigates the situated (re)production of categories, from the most mundane and unremarkable to those most strongly associated with power and privilege. By examining the reciprocal relationships between categorial phenomena and the basic structures and practices of social interaction, the book provides a new framework for integrating conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis.

Why People Do What They Do: And How to Get Them to Change
By Saadi Lahlou
Drawing on a large body of empirical research, Lahlou shows that people’s behaviour is predictable and shaped by ‘installations’ combining three sets of factors: what is technically possible (affordances of the environment), what people are able to do (embodied competences), and what monitors and controls behaviour (social regulation). He shows how we can intervene at each of the three levels of installations to change human behaviour, and how we can combine them for greater effectiveness and direction, with a robust, step-by-step method.
Watch a video about the book.
AI and Common Sense: Ambitions and Frictions
Edited by Martin W. Bauer and Bernard Schiele
Common sense is the endless frontier in the development of artificial intelligence, but what exactly is common sense, can we replicate it in algorithmic form, and if we can – should we? In this new book, Bauer, Schiele and their contributors from a range of disciplines analyse the nature of common sense, and the consequent challenges of incorporating into artificial intelligence models.
Embodiment, Political Economy and Human Flourishing: An Embodied Cognition Approach to Economic Life
By Frédéric Basso and Carsten Herrmann-Pillath
This book presents embodied economics as a foundational alternative to behavioural economics and other projects integrating economics and psychology inspired by the computational paradigm. It argues that embodiment grounds and bounds market processes, and, more broadly, economic life, and reinstates Political Economy against economic orthodoxy.
Behavioural Economics and Policy for Pandemics: Insights from Responses to COVID-19
Edited by Joan Costa-Font and Matteo M. Galizzi
This book brings together a world-class line-up of experts, many affiliated with LSE and PBS, to examine the successes and failures of behavioural economics and policy in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how people changed their behaviours and use of health care and discusses what we can learn in terms of addressing future pandemics.
Pragmatism and Methodology: Doing Research That Matters with Mixed Methods
By Alex Gillespie, Vlad Glăveanu and Constance de Saint Laurent
Taking a pragmatist approach to methods and methodology that fosters meaningful, impactful, and ethical research, this book rises to the challenge of today's data revolution. It shows how pragmatism can turn challenges, such as the abundance and accumulation of big qualitative data, into opportunities.

Research Handbook on Nudges and Society
Edited by Cass R. Sunstein and Lucia A. Reisch
This Research Handbook offers offers a comprehensive examination of the growing field of nudging and its impact on society. It includes a chapter on Behavioural science: ethics, expertise and systemic risk, authored by Liam Delaney, Atrina Oraee and Jet G. Sanders.
A Theory of Everyone: Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going
By Michael Muthukrishna (Basic Books, UK and MIT Press, US)
Michael's book offers a unified theory of human behaviour, culture, and society. It attempts to provide solutions for some of the most pressing problems of our collective future, such as polarization, inequality, the "great stagnation" in productivity, and the energy crisis.
Science communication : taking a step back to move forward
Edited by Martin W. Bauer and Bernard Schiele
'Science communication: taking a step back to move forward' is the book from the first post-Covid19 in-person conference ‘Science & You Metz 2021’. The book aims to examine and elaborate on challenges in science communication.
The Perfection Trap
by Thomas Curran
In his book, Dr Thomas Curran explores explores the paradoxical effects of perfectionism on everything from performance to social and financial inequality, and shows what we can do as individuals to resist the modern-day pressure to be perfect - and how we can create a culture that celebrates the joys of imperfection.

Wellbeing: Alternative Policy Perspectives

Edited by Timothy Besley, Irene Bucelli (LSE Press, 2022)

Bringing together scholars from economics, psychology and behavioural science, philosophy and political science, the authors explore how different disciplinary approaches can contribute to the study of wellbeing and how this can shape policy priorities.

Professor Paul Dolan contributes the chapter Accounting for Consequences and Claims in Policy.

Professor Liam Delaney co-authors Incorporating Wellbeing and Mental Health Research to Improve Pandemic Response.

The publication is available open-access via LSE Press.

Public Communication of Research Universities: ‘Arms Race’ for Visibility or Science Substance?

Edited by Marta Entradas and Martin W. Bauer (Routledge, 2022)

This book sets the scene for research into institutional science communication and offers a framework to analyse public communication at the level of research institutes. One thing becomes clear in the light of the ‘Decentralisation Hypothesis’: there is work in progress to build capacity for communication at the level of research institutes, which potentially fosters capacity for open-ended civic science communication beyond the university marketing function.

Health Communication and Disease in Africa: Beliefs, Traditions and Stigma

Edited by Bankole Falade and Mercy Murire (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021)

This book addresses different health issues across the African continent, bringing together multidisciplinary authors from across Africa and the rest of the world.

A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy-Making: History, Theory, Measurement, Implementation, and Examples

by Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel (Oxford University Press, 2021).

This volume shows how direct measures of subjective wellbeing can be used in policy evaluation and appraisal and provides a history on why governments should care about the happiness of their citizens.

Available open-access here.

Think Big: Take Small Steps and Build The Future You Want

by Grace Lordan (Penguin Life, 2021)

In this publication, Dr Grace Lordan looks at the small steps people can take to make big changes overall, as well as the behaviours that hold people back, drawing on research from behavioural science.

The Psychology of Social Influence: Modes and Modalities of Shifting Common Sense

by Gordon Sammut and Martin W. Bauer (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

This volume brings together the full range of modalities of social influence - from crowding, leadership, and norm formation to resistance and mass mediation - to set out a challenge-and-response 'cyclone' model.

Happy Ever After: A Radical New Approach to Living Well

by Paul Dolan (Penguin, 2019)

Professor Paul Dolan draws on a variety of studies from wellbeing, inequality and discrimination to bust the common myths about our sources of happiness.

Watch Paul Dolan speak about the book in this LSE event: Happy Ever After, 25 February 2019.

Knowledge in Context: Representations, Community and Culture (Classics Edition)

by Sandra Jovchelovitch (Routledge, 2019)

In this classics edition, Professor Sandra Jovchelovitch revisits her influential work on the societal and cultural processes that shape the development of representational processes in humans.

The Cultural Authority of Science: Comparing Across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas

Edited By Martin W Bauer, Petra Pansegrau, Rajesh Shukla (Routledge, 2019).

This Indo-European led collaboration aims to map the cultural authority of science, and to construct a system of indicators to observe this ‘science culture’ based on artefacts (science news analysis) and espoused beliefs and evaluations (public attitude data).

Book publications

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2023

2022

2021

2019

2018