Power lifts the mood. It motivates us to take charge and liberates us to be our authentic selves. It means wealth, ability, choice, fame, influence, dominance, authority, rank, and prestige. Powerlessness depresses the mood. It stifles the self by making it subservient to other people’s wills. It is at the core of many social ills—from poverty to anxiety, workplace problems to marital discord. The lack of power can damage our health, both mental and physical, and even shorten our lives.
We all want power, admittedly or not. Power is all over, and there is not any avoiding the power game. Even altruism and morality, which we commonly associate with selflessness and care, are continuously used to gain an edge in the pursuit of power. From the playground to high school and college life to the workplace, people seem to spontaneously converge on who the winners and losers of the unspoken popularity contest are. Do humans have an innate ability to perceive status cues in themselves and others? If this is the case, what are those cues? Are powerful people biologically different from the powerless? Are there inborn traits that confer an advantage in the pursuit of power? Can certain behaviors modulate our genetic traits to make us more likely to gain power?
If you have ever yearned to feel more in control of your life, obtain the power to determine your own fate, and be happier, healthier, and more productive, Talzoya explains the science in the back of dominance motivation and the rules of power play in our everyday lives. This book is a must-read to understand how power really works, so that you could live life on your own terms, get people to do what you need them to do, and have an have an effect on in the world.
Talzoya is a nuclear physicist by education and the author of Of Lovers, Lonely Hearts, and the Psychotic Spell Called Falling in Love, as well as a large number of scientific publications.The Traits of Powerful People combines the wisdom of modern science and inspiration from the lives of contemporary and historical masters of the power game to craft a compelling theory of how the pursuit of power shapes civilization and defines our lives.Talzoya takes pride in distilling knowledge from fields as distinct as political science, sociology, sexology, biology, biochemistry, evolutionary psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience into a readable format accessible to all, so that we may all get pleasure from the findings of science.
