The Power of Human: How Our Shared Humanity Can Help Us Create a Better World

by Adam Waytz

An urgent yet hopeful analysis of the surge in dehumanization, and how we can reverse it. The unprecedented access to other humans that technology provides has ironically freed us from engaging with them. Thanks to social media, we can know a campaigning politician’s platform; an avid traveler’s restaurant recommendations; and the daily emotional fluctuations of our friends without ever even picking up the phone. According to social psychologist Adam Waytz, our increasingly human-free lives come with a serious cost that we’ve already begun to pay: the loss of our humanity. Humans have superpowers. More than any other psychological stimulus, our presence can make experiences feel significant, inspire moral behavior, and encourage action. Recent studies suggest that we even have power over mortality―the survival rate of individuals with stronger social relationships has been found to be twice as high as those with weak relationships. The Power of Human shows us how to rehumanize and harness these unique abilities to improve our lives, beginning with our jobs. The remedy for the dehumanized worker is twofold. Employers, Waytz argues, must instill humanity into work by capitalizing on distinctly human skills, especially sociability and variability. Meanwhile, workers need to put to rest the idea that you are what you do and instead detach their personal identities from their occupations. Waytz offers a similarly science-based method to counter the rising threat that technology poses to our humanity, outlining how we can design human-machine partnerships that optimize the strengths of both parties. Finally, he reveals how, by humanizing intimacy and conflict in unexpected ways, we can strengthen relationships with both our friends and enemies. Essential reading for individuals and institutions alike, The Power of Human explains how we can solve one of our time’s biggest problems by better utilizing the influence we have on one another.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Technology, Science, Sociology, Social Science

272 pages, Hardcover

Published June 25, 2019

Reviews

[Guanxi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. One of the best must-reads of 2019. Adam Waytz is now my favorite thought-leader on being human. Adam: if you see this, let's do lunch - I'll buy.

Very well researched and inclusive of decades and decades of other's studies. Read this book and be a better human.

[Stephen Stilwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The presence of other humans can make experiences feel significant, inspire moral behavior and encourage actions. Studies show that people with strong social ties have a stronger survival rate compared to people with weaker social relationships. As technology brings us closer online, social media is actually preventing humans from physically seeing each other and being in the presence of others. We need to instill more humanity into our lives. Are we even human if we continue to avoid other humans? In order to rehumanize the world, we need to value sociability, and luckily there is growing popularity in an experience-based economy—where we purchase experiences instead of physical items. It’s becoming difficult to value and empathize with other humans, but we can move toward uniting humanity by avoiding the mindsets that internally isolate us from one another.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waytz provides a great overview of social psychology research relevant to understanding what it means to be human and to share humanity. There was maybe a bit too much of a reliance on an implicit definition of "human" and "human-ness" that became a sort of crutch for explaining all things and allowed Waytz to avoid really defining what "human" means and how humans are similar and different to nonhumans.

[Annie Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is one long lit review of basic findings. If you are familiar with the areas of work (e.g. Anthropomorphism, power dynamics, perspective taking, micro OB) then it doesn't offer any new insights nor does it editorialize in any way. If you are unfamiliar with those research areas, it might be more interesting.

[Darren Glazier · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute dogshit.

[Megan Tidd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good fundamental concepts for managing people