What We Value

With so many competing priorities pulling us in different directions every day-family, friends, work, our health-it can feel difficult to make decisions that are aligned with what we care about most. Especially in the moment, we often default to the immediate demand, the path of least resistance, the worn old habit we wanted to change. In What We Value, pioneering scholar Emily Falk reveals how we can transform our relationship with the daily decisions that define our lives-opening pathways to make more purposeful, fulfilling choices; more successfully change our behavior; and influence others to see differently-by thinking like neuroscientists. Drawing on her own award-winning research, Falk introduces readers to a new paradigm for understanding why we, and those around us, do what we do. This is the value calculation: the often-subconscious mechanism by which the brain computes our everyday choices. By learning how it works, Falk shows, we can learn to work more strategically with it-whether we want to embrace new activities and behaviors, connect more meaningfully with others, or become more effective leaders in our organizations and communities. With captivating stories of star comedians, journalists, sports legends, and more, Falk demonstrates how we can change what we think just by changing what we think about; get less defensive by connecting with our core values; and seed innovation by seeking out different perspectives. Whether deciding on something as small as what to eat for lunch or as big as what career to pursue, we can have more agency and flexibility than we might think. What We Value is a groundbreaking guide to finding new possibilities in our choices-and the lives we ultimately make with them.

Emily Falk is a professor of communication, psychology, and marketing at the University of Pennsylvania and the vice dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, where she directs the Communication Neuroscience Lab and the Climate Communication Division of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. She lives in Philadelphia.