We understand the world through stories. All of our experiences, all of our insights – psychologically, we interpret them through specific lenses that have been curated, perfected and passed down throughout human history. Internationally bestselling author Professor Ben Ambridge has quantified those lenses into eight distinct masterplots that can apply to any experience.

The mother who wakes up an hour early every day to prep her child's breakfast? She's playing out the Sacrifice plot. The amateur sports team who go on to win the big trophy against all the odds? They're part of the Underdog narrative.

Ambridge uses examples from fiction, real life, and popular psychology research to demonstrate how we not only naturally gravitate towards the masterplot narratives, but how we actually use those narratives to manipulate the world around us – like the addict who uses the Monster plot to paint their illness as something to overcome, or the boxer who relies on the Revenge narrative to motivate themselves to fight their way back after an embarrassing defeat.

These masterplots do more for us than to help us understand the world; they’re vehicles through which humans have survived. The Stories of Your Life shares fascinating lessons about the nature of humanity, the power of psychology and – most importantly – the way we see ourselves.

Psychology is everywhere. Our emotions and desires, the decisions we make on a daily basis - absolutely every aspect of the way we think and feel has been studied by psychologists. Through dozens of interactive puzzles, IQ tests, quizzes, jokes, puns and visual illusions, Ben Ambridge guides us through this wealth of research, showing us how we can better understand ourselves. Debunking tabloid speculation, revisiting old favourites such as the Stanford Prison Experiment and unearthing bleeding edge research unknown to the general reader, renowned psychologist Ben Ambridge blows away the received wisdom to reveal to enthusiasts and novices alike the psychology behind our daily lives. With wit and humour aplenty, he explains whether your blue eyes make you more or less trustworthy, how analogies can help cure cancer, whether Rorschach's famous inkblot tests really work, what your love for heavy metal (or Mozart) says about you, how psychology could help solve the obesity crisis and countless other revealing, entertaining and downright astonishing tests of your Psy-Q. Visit Ben's accompanying website, http://benambridge.wordpress.com/, and test yourself - and your friends.

Animal science is bizarre and wonderful. At the extreme end of zoology, psychologists are designing personality tests for dogs and logic problems for pigeons. They're giving fish spatial reasoning problems and asking cockatoos to keep a beat.

Now, through dozens of interactive puzzles, IQ tests and quizzes, Are You Smarter Than a Chimpanzee? lets you test yourself against the best nature has to offer. So: are you more than a match for a marmoset? Or a bit of a birdbrain?

Based on real, cutting-edge science and debunking common myths about animals, Are You Smarter Than a Chimpanzee? will make you question your assumptions about our place in the animal kingdom - and, finally, explain the real difference between dog-people and cat-people.

Is children's language acquisition based on innate linguistic structures or built from cognitive and communicative skills? This book summarises the major theoretical debates in all of the core domains of child language acquisition research (phonology, word-learning, inflectional morphology, syntax and binding) and includes a complete introduction to the two major contrasting theoretical approaches: generativist and constructivist. For each debate, the predictions of the competing accounts are closely and even-handedly evaluated against the empirical data. The result is an evidence-based review of the central issues in language acquisition research that will constitute a valuable resource for students, teachers, course-builders and researchers alike.

Is children's language acquisition based on innate linguistic structures or built from cognitive and communicative skills? This book summarises the major theoretical debates in all of the core domains of child language acquisition research (phonology, word-learning, inflectional morphology, syntax and binding) and includes a complete introduction to the two major contrasting theoretical approaches: generativist and constructivist. For each debate, the predictions of the competing accounts are closely and even-handedly evaluated against the empirical data. The result is an evidence-based review of the central issues in language acquisition research that will constitute a valuable resource for students, teachers, course-builders and researchers alike.

Psychology 101 as you wish it were taught: a collection of entertaining experiments, quizzes, jokes, and interactive exercises
Psychology is the study of mind and behavior: how and why people do absolutely everything that people do, from the most life-changing event such as choosing a partner, to the most humdrum, such as having an extra donut. Ben Ambridge takes these findings and invites the reader to test their knowledge of themselves, their friends, and their families through quizzes, jokes, and games. You'll measure your personality, intelligence, moral values, skill at drawing, capacity for logical reasoning, and more--all of it adding up to a greater knowledge of yourself, a higher "Psy-Q."
Lighthearted, fun, and accessible, this is the perfect introduction to psychology that can be fully enjoyed and appreciated by readers of all ages.

Take Dr. Ben's quizzes to learn:
- If listening to Mozart makes you smarter
- Whether or not your boss is a psychopath
- How good you are at waiting for a reward (and why it matters)
- Why we find symmetrical faces more attractive
- What your taste in art says about you