Why is our world the way it is?  We’re used to hearing explanations based on contemporary technology (omnipresent devices connecting everyone to everything) or on economic forces (e.g., globalization and offshoring of jobs), but we rarely hear anything based directly on people, and how they feel and behave today.

This is a significant gap.  Our world revolves around people, and if we don’t understand what they’re doing and why, we don’t understand much at all.

It is also not all that difficult a gap to fill.  Once we decide to take a good look at our “psychosphere,” a surprisingly small set of factors can be seen to explain a wide variety of contemporary developments—from gangsta rap to reality TV, SUVs to Islamic terrorism.