The Molecule of More

How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity - And Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race

By: Daniel Z. Lieberman MD, Michael E. Long

Narrated by: Tom Parks

Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Why are we obsessed with the things we want and bored when we get them?

Why is addiction “perfectly logical” to an addict?

Why does love change so quickly from passion to disinterest?

Why are some people diehard liberals and others hardcore conservatives?

Why are we always hopeful for solutions even in the darkest times - and so good at figuring them out?

The answer is found in a single chemical in your brain: dopamine. Dopamine ensured the survival of early man. Thousands of years later, it is the source of our most basic behaviors and cultural ideas - and progress itself.

Dopamine is the chemical of desire that always asks for more - more stuff, more stimulation, and more surprises. In pursuit of these things, it is undeterred by emotion, fear, or morality. Dopamine is the source of our every urge, that little bit of biology that makes an ambitious business professional sacrifice everything in pursuit of success, or that drives a satisfied spouse to risk it all for the thrill of someone new. Simply put, it is why we seek and succeed; it is why we discover and prosper. Yet, at the same time, it’s why we gamble and squander.

From dopamine’s point of view, it’s not the having that matters. It’s getting something - anything - that’s new. From this understanding - the difference between possessing something versus anticipating it - we can understand in a revolutionary new way why we behave as we do in love, business, addiction, politics, religion - and we can even predict those behaviors in ourselves and others.

In The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—And will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, George Washington University professor and psychiatrist Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, and Georgetown University lecturer Michael E. Long present a potentially life-changing proposal: Much of human life has an unconsidered component that explains an array of behaviors previously thought to be unrelated, including why winners cheat, why geniuses often suffer with mental illness, why nearly all diets fail, and why the brains of liberals and conservatives really are different.

©2018 Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, and Michael E. Long. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Publishing by arrangement with BenBella Books.

Critic reviews

"One might consider it Freakonomics for the mind."— Greg Roth, "The Idea Enthusiast"

"Daniel Lieberman and Michael Long have pulled off an amazing feat. They have made a biography of a neurotransmitter a riveting read. Once you understand the power and peril of dopamine, you’ll better understand the human condition itself.” —Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and When

"Meet a molecule whose fingerprint rests upon every aspect of human nature—from desire and drugs to politics and progress. Lieberman and Long tell the epic saga of dopamine as a page-turner that you simply can't put down."—David Eagleman, PhD, neuroscientist at Stanford and New York Times bestselling author

Amazing book

Content of this book is fascinating, well researched and delivered in way that is understandable. And actionable. Narrator is also fantastic.

Advocate for balance

The book takes a rant long time to make it’s point (like really the entire book)

It was difficult to stay tuned as I’m aware of a lot of the literature it talks about

But slowly as I went through the chapters I learned a bit more, I really liked the concept of distinguishing control dopamine from desire dopamine for example

When the book established it’s dopamine charters it started to take about the influence over human life in domains like politics and the influence of this way if behaving

This ultimately built up to an awareness of when we’re acting dopamine-aclly and a case for balance and harmony with some good examples of positive things to peruse

Ultimately things came together at the end , the journey was informative, but the moral was almost lost on me until the end

Incredibly useful and important

In our dopamine-addicted society, this well narrated, deep but consise knowledge is more relevant than ever. Vital for relationships, drug-users and anyone who wants to understand humans on a broad, simple and dumbfoundingly insightful level. I promise you will thank yourself for going through this book. Brilliant work, and deep thanks to the author!

The book for 2020/2021!

Loved it. Should be a requirement for everyone! It not only describes human nature of others but helps literally every aspect of life.

Lots of New Information

I thought I was reasonably cognizant of the effects of dopamine, but I learned a lot from this book. This well-written treatise offered many cogent descriptions of how dopamine works and how this manifests in many aspects of behavior. While I am not a thtill-seeker, I realized that I probably have a dopaminergic personality. The narrator did a good job making the material more interesting.

I will read everything this author has written!

I loved this book! It was scientific and timely. Everyone needs to understand the chemistry that drives them so we can use it, instead of being a victim to it. #knowthyself

Amazing book!

The content in this book has grown my understanding in the utilization of dopamine and H&M

Great Listen

There's a lot of information packed in here but presented in a way that makes it easy to digest.

Knowledge Bomb Overload

So much of what I have been dealing with in my life and clients of mine (fitness clients) was explained in this book. The author did a fantastic job of taking complex information and making it understandable. I highly recommend this book.

In the Top 5 books I’ve ever read

Incredible life-changing insights
Makes sense of my current behaviors
The author takes complex neuroscience and makes it easily digestible