OVERVIEW: A detailed review of the best psychology books on human behavior for beginners, intermediate, and advanced readers.
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It has been said that there are three main ways to learn about human psychology:
- Read Greek mythology
- Read Carl Jung
- Observe others
Of these three ways, observing others is the most powerful. However, reading about the psyche helps inform our observations.
Ready to review the best psychology books?
Let’s dive in …
Why Read Psychology Books?
There are at least four significant reasons to learn about psychology:
- Understand yourself and your motivations.
- Learn about and understand other people.
- Change a behavior or feeling.
- Psychologically heal or develop yourself
In my exploration, I’ve read many psychology books—well over 300 of them.
These books covered fields including:
- Depth psychology
- Humanistic psychology
- Developmental psychology
- Social psychology
- Behavioral psychology
- Cognitive psychology
- Positive psychology
- Ego psychology
- Transpersonal psychology
If you’re reading this, you’re probably interested in better understanding yourself and what drives your behavior too.
Why do we do what we do?
How to Select the Best Psychology Books
This is a challenging task because we’re all at different levels of development. The “best psychology book” for one person will certainly be different for another.
So to curate this list of the best psychology books, I’ve broken them into three main categories:
- Best Psychology Books for Beginners
- Best Psychology Books on Human Behavior
- Best Psychology Books for Depth (Advanced)
We’ll start with the beginner’s list and the one on human behavior as most readers will likely be more interested in these categories.
Then, I’ll provide my picks for the best psychology books “outside the mainstream.”
Best Psychology Books for Beginners
Note: The psychology books in each category are not listed in any particular order.
1) Mindset by Carol Dweck
Dweck’s modern classic is both sobering and enlightening. Her multi-decade psychological study on mindsets reveals how important it is to understand the true nature of our development and how learning works.
Mindset is sobering because it exposes how parents and teachers have been unconsciously conditioning a highly limiting fixed mindset in children for many generations. And the societal effects are showing.
If you’re a parent, consider this book mandatory reading. But really, everyone should read it because we’re all influenced, to varying degrees, by a fixed mindset that keeps us from realizing the potential within us.
2) Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman
Seligman is considered the father of the positive psychology movement. What I appreciate most about Authentic Happiness is that Seligman provides practical methods for increasing one’s level of happiness based on decades of research in the field.
Seligman demonstrates that lasting fulfillment is found not in fleeting pleasures but in cultivating our natural strengths. Perhaps you’ve heard about the research on the benefits of maintaining a gratitude journal. This book is one of the first I’m aware of that highlighted this research.
3) The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan W. Watts
Is insecurity the consequence of trying to be secure? That’s the premise behind philosopher Alan Watts’s classic treatise.
If you’re a student of Eastern philosophy, you’re probably already familiar with Watts. He possessed a tremendous skill for communicating Eastern ideas to a Western audience. The Wisdom of Insecurity highlights why consumerism will never provide meaning or purpose to our lives. Then, the book explores what will.
4) Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
I can’t imagine a list of the best psychology books not including Frankl’s classic. I first read Man’s Search for Meaning in my early 20s. But it didn’t mean anything until I re-read it in my mid-30s.
Frankl’s observations as a captive in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II are instructive for every human being. All readers will likely gain a new perspective on their lives and what drives them after reading this book.
5) The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
Simply put, having too many choices can lead to anxiety and depression—especially when we try to maximize our decisions. I still remember how this book affected me when I read it in 2014.
After reading The Paradox of Choice, my awareness and attitude toward “shopping” changed measurably. Are you a “satisficer” or a “maximizer”? The latter comes with a lot of self-imposed suffering.
6) Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
It’s difficult to appreciate how important Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence was when it was first published in 1995. The paradigm of intelligence as a singular concept based on IQ was considered fact.
However, the work of developmental researchers like Howard Gardner began exposing us to the fact that we have multiple intelligences (at least nine of them). Goleman featured emotional intelligence in this classic and social intelligence in a follow-up.
7) Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson
Working in the coaching field for two and half decades, I explored most, if not all, of the psychological assessments on the market (Myers-Briggs, DISC, Human Design Engineering, etc.)
From my experience, the Enneagram is the most robust and functional personality model. To appreciate the depth and robustness of this personality system, read Personality Types. The nine levels of each type illustrate a path for healthy personality development, which is a key differentiating factor between this system and other models.
However, if you’re completely new to this personality system The Wisdom of the Enneagram is perhaps the most practical and accessible. The Enneagram by Helen Palmer is also an excellent primer.
8) Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Part of Maslow’s study of self-actualizing individuals was his observations on what he called peak experiences.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi picked up where Maslow left off, providing a detailed analysis of what he termed flow. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is now considered a classic in the psychological literature.
Best Psychology Books on Human Behavior
Now let’s examine some of the best psychology books on human behavior.
9) Games People Play by Eric Berne
Berne’s classic from the 60s is still highly relevant today. Transactional analysis examines human behavior through a social lens. Berne highlights that in social relationships, individuals embody one of three different expressions of the ego: the adult, the parent, and the child.
The adult is rational; the parent is critical and nurturing; the child is dependent and intuitive. All three expressions are in each of us and different social situations trigger different ones and in specific combinations.
Games People Play is a fascinating read if you’re interested in social dynamics and if you want to become more conscious of your behavior.
10) The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
If you’re going to read one book on cult psychology and mass movements, The True Believer is it. The psychology of cults influences so much of society and culture as it plays to a host of unconscious mechanisms within the psyche.
Whether we’re talking about organized religions, mass social movements, cult brands like Harley-Davidson, or destructive cults, the same psychology applies.
11) The Farther Reaches of Human Nature by Abraham Maslow
Maslow is the father of humanistic psychology (the “third wave” of psychology). While most researchers were studying mental illness, Maslow focused on positive mental health. Although all of Maslow’s writings are interesting, I’ve selected The Farther Reaches of Human Nature for this list.
The Farther Reaches was published posthumously. In my opinion, the book is very accessible and it includes some of Maslow’s best ideas on the importance of creativity in positive mental health.
12) The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal
McGonigal taught the most popular course at Stanford University’s Continuing Studies program called “The Science of Willpower.”
The Willpower Instinct is essentially that course distilled into a single book. It’s full of compelling research to support its insights. But more importantly, the book provides a litany of exercises and practices to cultivate a stronger will.
(See my guide on How to Make Positive Changes.)
13) The Power of Habit By Charles Duhigg
The Power of Habit is another important read on behavioral change. Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit is more popular and entertaining than The Willpower Instinct.
However, if I had to recommend one book on habits and self-control, The Willpower Instinct has the edge because of the structure and practical methods McGonigal outlines in her book.
14) Drive By Daniel Pink
Through engaging research and storytelling, Pink draws on lessons from self-determination theory to illuminate what drives us—especially in the context of our work.
Here’s a three-second summary: the answer is purpose, autonomy, and mastery. It’s a very accessible read. Pink’s Drive shows why “carrot and stick” motivation doesn’t work and how money is certainly not the primary driver of motivation.
15) The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo
Psychology professor Philip Zimbardo’s famed Stanford prison experiment and other related studies reveal the “lesser angels of human nature.” I don’t think you can begin to understand human behavior (and the nature of the psyche) without carefully studying what we call “evil.”
You can get a “Cliff’s Note” version of The Lucifer Effect in Zimbardo’s TED Talk on the psychology of evil.
Traveling Deeper into the Psyche
Cognitive psychology and social psychology are what’s popular in the field right now.
Even though psychology is considered a “soft science,” through cognitive psychology, social psychology, and neuropsychology, clinical researchers, social scientists, and neuroscientists are attempting to codify the human mind.
In my opinion, this is problematic because the experimenters and researchers themselves are mostly unconscious of the behaviors and impulses that they are attempting to observe in their sample groups.
Plus, unconscious biases influence us in profound ways (see Thinking Fast and Slow below).
Although this work is important and interesting, in my opinion, it fails to get to the core of why we do what we do. Without realizing it, it’s examining effects, not causes.
So if we’re interested in learning about what’s going on inside us, we need to dig deeper.
Selecting the Best Psychology Books for Depth
From my perspective, the best psychology books address the unconscious and the nature of the psyche itself.
The challenge with exploring the unconscious is that it’s dark, chaotic, messy, and sometimes irrational (from the perspective of our conscious minds).
In exploring the unconscious realm, we enter the world of symbols, images, myths, dreams, and fairy tales.
In curating my picks for the best psychology books, I tried to select depth psychology books that I believe are the most accessible.
The Best Psychology Books (for Real Depth)
These books address human behavior too—but on a deeper level.
16) How to Be an Adult by David Richo
If you were going to read only one book about psychological development, this one covers the most ground. It truly is a “handbook.” This little book is jam-packed with useful insights and practices. There’s no “fluff,” which is why it covers so much ground in only 120 pages.
In How to be an Adult, Richo sets the development of our psychology in the hero’s journey framework, exploring the “challenges” we face in approaching adulthood. These challenges take us into what we tend to resist the most: our grief, fears, anger, and guilt.
Richo’s handbook isn’t something you read once and set aside. You carry it with you, referring back often. Don’t be fooled into believing that adulthood comes naturally with age.
If everyone read this book—and lived the practices contained within it—I’m confident we would live in a very different world. But that change starts with each of us.
17) The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk
Simply put, The Body Keeps the Score is an important book everyone should read. It highlights the fact that trauma is stored in the body (something that’s well-documented in Eastern medicine as well). It’s our dissociation from early childhood trauma that causes most of our suffering and mental illnesses in adulthood. This book complements a lot of the material we cover on this website.
Note: Physician John E. Sarno arrived at similar insights. His body of work illustrates how repressed emotions (especially rage) are the cause of virtually all chronic pain and disease. See, for example, his The Mindbody Prescription.
18) Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Kahnman’s book has become a modern classic—and for good reason. This Nobel laureate in economics explains how two different systems in our minds guide our behavior: one system is conscious and aware while the other is automatic and impulsive.
In many ways, Kahneman’s research provides “scientific evidence” of the unconscious as described in depth psychology.
19) The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
I can’t imagine a list of the best psychology books without at least one title by famed mythologist Joseph Campbell. Although Campbell wasn’t technically a “Jungian,” he was highly influenced by Jung’s work. As Campbell explains, at its deepest level, mythology is the study of the psyche.
In Flight of the Wild Gander, Campbell explained, “Mythology is psychology, misread as cosmology, history, and biography.”The Power of Myth is the transcript of an extensive PBS interview Campbell did with Bill Moyers.
I would recommend the video version over the book mainly because of the additional visuals in the presentation. Also, if you want to take a masterclass on Eastern and Western psychology, see Campbell’s 3-part lecture series, Mythos. There’s nothing else like it.
20) The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller
Anyone who bravely explores the depth of their psyche will come to know their trauma. Alice Miller’s revealing book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, gives context to how this trauma unfolded and how to relate to these experiences in adulthood.
21) King Warrior Magician Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette
If you want to understand human behavior, read King Warrior Magici Lover (commonly referred to as KWML). KWML is a wild ride into the psyche.
You’ll meet the full cast of characters, but the real story in my opinion isn’t about the Big Four mentioned in the title, but their bipolar shadow counterparts.
In getting to know and understanding these shadow archetypes we begin to appreciate the forces that rule most of human behavior. For anyone interested in psychology and human behavior, put KWML on your list.
More Books on Depth Psychology
This book review was too long, so I broke it into two parts.
Are you looking for the best psychology books for depth?
REVIEW: 21 Best Carl Jung Books and Best Jungian Psychology Books
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