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Books

Institute-funded researchers have published more than 120 books with such distinguished university presses as Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, and Johns Hopkins, along with popular publishers like Random House. Some books have reached best-seller status and have been widely translated. These include Why Good Things Happen to Good People and 2022 Dignity for Deeply Forgetful People: How Caregivers Can Meet the Challenges of Alzheimer’s Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press). Institute researchers from leading universities have published more than 500 scientific articles, many in leading journals such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Science.

89 Institute Books Published

Also see our latest scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Book cover: Soulful Work

Soulful Work 2.0: Powered by Inner Person Potential

Jo-Ann Triner

Soulful Work 2.0 explores the love–labor connection and the paralysis of our inner-person potential. Guiding readers beyond The Great Resignation, The Great Reshuffle and The Quiet Quit, Triner calls for a radical rethink of the way we work, preparing readers for the world-class work that lies ahead. Her hope is that we might hand down to future generations a labor paradigm that honors our essence and relieves the intergenerational duress.  More

Book cover: Dignity for Deeply Forgetful People

Dignity for Deeply Forgetful People: How Caregivers Can Meet the Challenges of Alzheimer’s Disease

Stephen G. Post

For caregivers of deeply forgetful people: a book that combines new ethics guidelines with an innovative program on how to communicate and connect with people with Alzheimer’s.  More   Interviews

Book cover: Measuring Well-Being

Measuring Well-Being: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Social Sciences and the Humanities

Matthew T. Lee, Laura D. Kubzansky, and Tyler J. VanderWeele

This edited volume focuses on both conceptual and practical challenges in measuring well-being. Leveraging insights across diverse disciplines, including psychology, economics, sociology, statistics, public health, theology, and philosophy, contributors consider the philosophical and theological traditions on happiness, well-being and the good life, as well as recent empirical research on well-being and its measurement.  More

Book cover: God and Love on Route 80

God and Love on Route 80: The Hidden Mystery of Human Connectedness

Stephen G. Post

There are no coincidences in this world: God and Love on Route 80 is the highly entertaining true story of a cross-country road trip and a spiritual journey that led one young man to the discovery that a powerful force carries us towards our destinies.  More

Book cover: God Can’t

God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils

Thomas Jay Oord

Hurting people ask heart-felt questions about God and suffering. Some “answers” they receive appeal to mystery: “God’s ways are not our ways.” Some answers say God allows evil for a greater purpose. Some say evil is God’s punishment.  More

Book cover: The Love That Does Justice

The Love That Does Justice: Spiritual Activism in Dialogue with Social Science

Edited by Michael A. Edwards and Stephen G. Post

Download a Free Copy (PDF)

“Love without justice is weak sentimentality. Justice without love is naked brutality. Humanity cries out daily for love and justice. This extraordinary book is a necessity for those seeking to understand the need for, and the connection between love and justice.”
—Reverend Dr. Otis Moss, Jr., Pastor, Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, Cleveland; Former Chairman of the Board, Morehouse College, Atlanta  More

Book cover: The Heart of Religion

The Heart of Religion: Spiritual Empowerment, Benevolence, and the Experience of God’s Love

Matthew T Lee, Margaret M. Poloma, and Stephen G. Post

Beneath our culture’s obsession with wealth and power, status and celebrity, millions of Americans are quietly engaged in a deeply religious struggle to free themselves from petty selfishness and to embrace a life of benevolence and compassion.  More

Book cover: The Hidden Gifts of Helping

The Hidden Gifts of Helping: How the Power of Giving, Compassion, and Hope Can Get Us Through Hard Times

Stephen G. Post

Research has revealed that when we show concern for others—empathizing with a friend who has lost a loved one, mowing the lawn for an elderly neighbor, or volunteering to mentor a school-aged child—we improve our own health and well-being and embrace and give voice to our deeper identity and dignity as human beings.  More

Book cover: Why Good Things Happen to Good People

Why Good Things Happen to Good People: How the Simple Act of Giving Can Bring You a Longer, Happier, Healthier Life

Stephen G. Post and Jill Neimark

A longer life. A happier life. A healthier life. Above all, a life that matters—so that when you leave this world, you’ll have changed it for the better. If science said you could have all this just by altering one behavior, would you?  More

Book cover: Altruism & Health

Altruism & Health: Perspectives from Empirical Research

Edited by Stephen G. Post

Although numerous studies have demonstrated that people experience health benefits when treated kindly and compassionately, do those who provide love to others also experience health benefits? In other words, is it at least as good to give as to receive? Does virtue actually have its own rewards?  More

Book cover: Why Good Things Happen to Good People

Is Ultimate Reality Unlimited Love?

By Stephen Garrard Post for/with Sir John Templeton. Foreword by Drs. John M. and Josephine Templeton.

Download Free Excerpts (PDF)

In this unprecedented book, Stephen G. Post draws on more than a decade of friendship with investor Sir John Templeton (1912-2008) to bring to life this business icon’s core spiritual insight about Ultimate Reality (a.k.a. “Ground of Being,” “God,” “Pure Unlimited Love”).  More

Book cover: Research on Altruism & Love

Research on Altruism & Love: An Annotated Bibliography of Major Studies in Psychology, Sociology, Evolutionary Biology, and Theology

Edited by Stephen G. Post, Byron Johnson, Michael E. McCullough, and Jeffrey P. Schloss

Research on Altruism and Love is a compendium of annotated bibliographies reviewing literature and research studies on the nature of love. An essay introduces each of the annotated bibliographies. Organized into four listings, each represents a distinct area of study in this emerging academic discipline.  More

Book cover: Science of Love

Science of Love: The Wisdom of Well-Being

Thomas Jay Oord

This book explores a nascent field that is investigating the love-and-science symbiosis. Scholars involved in this research are methodologically investigating cosmology, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, neurology, sex and romance, and the role of emotions as each relates to love. They also look at religious, ethical, and philosophical issues, such as virtue, creation ex nihilo, progress, divine action, agape, values, religious practices, pacifism, sexuality, friendship, freedom, and marriage.  More

Book cover: Love That Works

Love That Works: The Art and Science of Giving

Bruce Brander

Author Bruce Brander offers a fresh look at love and romance. Brander draws on history, theology, literature, psychology, and sociology to show why romance is a notoriously poor basis for stable, loving relationships. He points out that in past generations, when romance was relatively safe and sweet, people tempered its impetuous urges with other types of love that are all but forgotten in our time.  More

Book cover: The Ways and Power of Love

The Ways and Power of Love

Pitirim Sorokin

The Ways and Power of Love was originally published in 1954 when Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968) was in the twilight of his career and leading the Harvard Research Center in creative altruism. His elaborate scientific analysis of love with regard to its higher and lower forms, its causes and effects, its human and cosmic significance, and its core features constitutes the first study on this topic.  More

Book cover: Human Nature and the Freedom of Public Religious Expression

Human Nature and the Freedom of Public Religious Expression

Stephen G. Post

Drawing on current research in science and religion, distinguished bioethicist Stephen G. Post provocatively argues that human beings are, by nature, inclined toward a presence in the universe that is higher than their own. In consequence, the institutions of everyday life, such as schools, the workplace, and the public square, are not justified in censoring the spiritual and religious expression that freely arises from the wellspring of the human spirit.  More

Book cover: Altruism in World Religions

Altruism in World Religions

Edited by Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton

In 1830 philosopher Auguste Comte coined the term altruism to provide a general definition for the act of selflessly caring for others. But does this modern conception of sacrificing one’s own interests for the well-being of others apply to the charitable behaviors encouraged by all world religions? In Altruism in World Religions prominent scholars from an array of religious perspectives probe the definition of altruism to determine whether it is a category that serves to advance the study of religion.  More

Book cover: The Altruism Reader

The Altruism Reader: Selections from Writings on Love, Religion, and Science

Edited by Thomas Jay Oord

This anthology brings together for the first time leading essays and book chapters from theologians, philosophers, and scientists on their research relating to ethics, altruism, and love. Because the general consensus today is that scholarship in moral theory requires empirical research, the arguments of the leading scholars presented in this book will be particularly important to those examining issues in love, ethics, religion, and science.  More

Book cover: Unexpected Grace

Unexpected Grace: Stories of Faith, Science, and Altruism

Bill Kramer

In Unexpected Grace Bill Kramer offers a rare look into the human side of the world of scientific research. He goes behind the scenes of four scientific investigations on diverse aspects of the study of unlimited love and offers uplifting portraits of human beings struggling to understand and improve the complex issues facing them. He explores the dynamics between the researchers, the subjects they study, and the participants in the studies, and eloquently tells their personal stories.  More

Book cover: Altruism and Altruistic Love

Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue

Stephen G. Post, Lynn G. Underwood, Jeffrey P. Schloss, and William B. Hurlbut

This is a collaborative examination of one of humanity’s essential and definining characteristics by reknowned researchers from various disciplines.  More

Book cover: Unlimited Love

Unlimited Love: Altruism, Compassion, and Service

Stephen G. Post

In Unlimited Love, author Stephen Post presents an argument for the creation of a new interdisciplinary field for the study of love from a scientific perspective. These insights are essential to our future; in fact, Teilhard de Chardin noted that the discovery of the scientific understanding of the power of unselfish love would be as significant in human history as the discovery of fire.  More

Book cover: Blood and Fire

Blood and Fire: Godly Love in a Pentecostal Emerging Church

Margaret M. Poloma and Ralph W. Hood, Jr.

What does it mean to live out the theology presented in the Great Commandment to “love God above all and to love your neighbor as yourself”? In Blood and Fire, Poloma and Hood explore how understandings of godly love function to empower believers. Though godly love may begin as a perceived relationship between God and a person, it is made manifest as social behavior among people.  More

Book cover: Divine Love

Divine Love: Perspectives from the World’s Religious Traditions

Edited by Jeff Levin and Stephen G. Post

The contributors to Divine Love cover a broad spectrum of world religions, comparing and contrasting approaches to the topic among Christians of several denominations, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and adherents of traditional African religion.  More