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UNF*CKOLOGY: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence
by Amy Alkon

UNF*CKOLOGY: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence by Amy Alkon

Amy Alkon presents Unf*ckology, a “science-help” book that knocks the self-help genre on its unscientific ass. You can finally stop fear from being your boss and put an end to your lifelong social suckage.

Have you spent your life shrinking from opportunities you were dying to seize but feel “that’s just who I am”? Well, screw that! You actually can change, and it doesn’t take exceptional intelligence or a therapist who’s looking forward to finally buying Aruba after decades of listening to you yammer on.

Transforming yourself takes revolutionary science-help from Amy Alkon, who has spent the past 20 years translating cutting-edge behavioral science into highly practical advice in her award-winning syndicated column. In Unf*ckology, Alkon pulls together findings from neuroscience, behavioral science, evolutionary psychology, and clinical psychology. She explains everything in language you won’t need a psych prof on speed-dial to understand—and with the biting dark humor that made Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck such a great read. She debunks widely-accepted but scientifically unsupported notions about self-esteem, shame, willpower, and more and demonstrates that:

· Thinking your way into changing (as so many therapists and self-help books advise) is the most inefficient way to go about it.

· The mind is bigger than the brain, meaning that your body and your behavior are your gym for turning yourself into the new, confident you.

· Fear is not just the problem; it’s also the solution.

· By targeting your fears with behavior, you make changes in your brain that reshape your habitual ways of behaving and the emotions that go with them.

Follow Amy Alkon’s groundbreaking advice in Unf*ckology, and eventually, you’ll no longer need to act like the new you; you’ll become the new you. And how totally f*cking cool is that?

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About the author:

Amy Alkon does “applied behavioral science,” translating scientific research into highly practical advice. Alkon writes The Science Advice Goddess, an award-winning, syndicated column that runs in newspapers across the United States and Canada. She is also the author of Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck and I See Rude People. She has been on Good Morning America, The Today Show, NPR, CNN, MTV, and does a weekly science podcast. She has written for Psychology Today, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times Magazine, the New York Daily News, among others, and has given a TED talk. She is the President of the Applied Evolutionary Psychology Society. She lives in Venice, California.

Praise for Unf*ckology:

“Amy Alkon does a wonderful job of explaining how to not only change what you do, but more importantly, how you think. By rooting her advice in science—and in her own hilarious experiences—she shows you how to get out of your own way and become your best self.” —Charles Duhigg, author of bestselling The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better

“Amy Alkon is a virtuoso at making science accessible and fun. In this fast-paced, deeply authentic “science-help” book, Alkon weaves her own dramatic transformation with the latest science to show you how to live the life you truly want to live. It’s time to stop pitying yourself, devaluing yourself, hiding yourself, and all the other things we do to ourselves to avoid being our full selves. You can be comfortable in your own skin RIGHT NOW. This book will show you how.” —Scott Barry Kaufman, Professor of Positive Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, author of Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined and Wired To Create

“Unf*ckology is smart, sassy, and absolutely hilarious (Amy Alkon curses like a great poet). But don’t let the LOL-moments fool you. Unf*ckology is also a rigorously scientific big-hearted attempt to kill the fear that gnaws our lives to the bone. This is a powerful manifesto for living brave.” —Jonathan Gottschall, Distinguished Fellow, Washington & Jefferson College; author of The Storytelling Animaland The Professor in the Cage

“Amy Alkon is every bit as original, fierce and science-backed as you’d expect in a book titled Unf*ckology. Alkon invented the science-help genre, and this book finds her at the height of her powers. Alkon tackles interpersonal and intrapsychic problems with a voice as sui generis as the problems are universal. It’s a master class in making important life changes taught by your hilarious best friend, the one who is as funny as she is smart, and whose radical honesty about her own shortcomings makes her thoroughly unfuckwithable.” —Kaja Perina, Editor in Chief of Psychology Today

“Advice on how to change behavior should be grounded in the science of behavior, but it rarely is. Don’t let the name fool you: Unf*ckology may speak with a potty mouth, but it cites journals and textbooks to bring a nuanced take on cognitive neuroscience and human evolution to the problems of everyday life.” —Christopher Chabris, Assoc. Professor of Psychology, Union College; co-author of The Invisible Gorilla

“If what you want the most is a swift kick in the ass strong enough to send you in the direction of your dreams, Amy Alkon is just the brash, hilarious ass-kicker you’ve been searching for.” —Heather Havrilesky, “Ask Polly” columnist and author of the best-selling How to Be a Person in the World

“In Unf*ckology, your fears are named and tamed, your hopes uncovered and empowered in a dazzling collection of science-based insights, with enough twisted humor to render your brain helpless to resist. The section on managing willpower alone is life-changing.”

—Terry Rossio, screenwriter, Shrek; Academy Award nominee for Best Adapted Screenplay

“Amy Alkon’s guide to having courage, confidence, and self esteem could not come at a more propitious time. As more and more colleges turn out spineless snowflakes offended by hand gestures and adjectives, enabled as they are by equally invertebrate faculty and administrators, and major corporations take disciplinary actions against employees who dare to challenge the PC orthodoxy that everyone is equally qualified for every job, we need a major corrective toward a proper understanding of human nature grounded in science, not in postmodernism’s dogma that all ideas are equally true. Unf*ckology should be assigned to all students as textbook for the new science—‘growing a spine’—and taking personal responsibility for your life.” —Michael Shermer, Presidential Fellow Chapman University, author of Heavens on Earth

“You have never read a book like this in your life. Amy Alkon is as funny and as wildly inventive as Dave Barry or PG Wodehouse. Yet she has created what she calls ‘a science help’ book. A book riddled with fascinating research from psychology and neurobiology. A book that shows you and me how to use the results of that psychology in our own lives. And something more. Very few scientists these days are coming up with ideas that pull together the results of wildly diverse disciplines into a new big picture. Very few of today's thinkers give us big ideas. By showing us how to use research on fields like embodiment to change our lives, Amy Alkon has given us two things: new big ideas; and balls-to-the wall hilarity. Let's put that in different words. Unf*ckology is one of the most delightful books you will read in this lifetime. And Amy Alkon has established herself with this book as THE top practitioner of applied science.” —Howard Bloom, author of The Lucifer Principle and How I Accidentally Started the Sixties

“Amy Alkon is such a festive cocktail of funny and brainy! Unf*ckology is hilarious, wise and amazingly useful ‘science-help’ for the meek to finally get going on inheriting the earth.” —Sandra Tsing Loh, host of the syndicated public radio show, The Loh Down On Science; author of The Madwoman in the Volvo

“In this (very funny) book, Amy Alkon explains how not to be a loser. Being socially anxious and desperate isn't fun. And Amy shows you the science behind self-transformation. No short-cuts or thinking your way out—just incremental and targeted action. I found myself nodding throughout because I used a lot of these strategies myself as a socially anxious young person trying to move into an academic career that demanded a great deal of public speaking and interpersonal relationship building. And I appreciated Amy’s humor as well—taking life too seriously makes changing that much harder.”

—W. Keith Campbell, Professor of Psychology, University of Georgia, co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic

“Unf*ckology is a f*cking good book. The self-help book for people who hate self-help books, Unf*ckology is firmly grounded in empirical research and takes a no-nonsense, no-coddling, no-airy-fairy-BS approach to the subject. It’s also very funny. Every page sparkles with Amy’s irreverent wit and wisdom. Highly recommended!” —Dr. Steve Stewart-Williams, Assoc. Professor of Psychology, University of Nottingham