Archive for October, 2017

New Movies for October

Thursday, October 19th, 2017

Here are the latest additions to our DVD collection:

2:22Wonder Woman DVD cover
Queen of the Desert
Transformers: The Last Knight
Wonder Woman
All Eyez on Me
The Big Sick
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie
The Hero
Lowriders
Megan Leavey
The Mummy
Paris Can Wait

You may browse the entire DVD collection via the library catalog.

Book Review: Popular

Tuesday, October 17th, 2017

book cover imagePrinstein, Mitch. Popular: the power of likability in a status-obsessed world. Viking, 2017.

There are many likeable people on the Ford Library staff, and this summer one of the most likeable of all heard an interview on NPR featuring the author of a new book titled Popularity. Our librarian was sure that the book would become a runaway best seller but that has yet to happen. No matter, this engaging book shows how popularity profoundly effects people every day and offers insights on how to experience a happier life.

UNC chaired psychology professor Mitch Prinstein begins his book by explaining that there are two types of popularity, status and likeability, but only one of them is valuable. Status involves being well-known and influential. In high school, cheerleaders and athletes have status. In adult life, this group includes CEO’s and celebrities, but also ordinary people who strive for prestige, wealth and beauty. Sadly in later life, status-seeking individuals tend to be troubled by discontent, anxiety and depression.

Prinstein explains that the other type of popularity – likeability — confers lifelong benefits. More than intellect, ambition, or socioeconomic status, likeability is associated with future happiness and career success. Behaviors that make children likeable – being helpful, cheerful and kind — directly translate into how satisfied, successful and physically healthy they will be decades later. Likeability is also associated with close and caring relationships as well as personal growth. Likeable adults have more friends and higher self-esteem.

Likeable people live in a different world than their unlikeable peers – one of their own making. Choosing to be more likeable begins with small adjustments in current behavior, such as a friendly hello to a student in the mallway, a single act of kindness, or a smile. These small social cues will be picked up by others and reflected back. We both influence and are influenced by others’ likeability in a feedback loop all day long. If everyone were more likeable, they would be treated better every day. And Fuqua would become a better place for all.

Also available as an ebook on OverDrive and as an audiobook on OverDrive.

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.