Aiming to bring awareness to research on the mental forces that drive people apart, especially in today's splintered society, Reich (psychology, Arizona State U.) illustrates how rational and intelligent people lose their ability to understand and appreciate each other when their attitudes and emotions become involved, showing that emotions and their effects on thinking and judgment processes breed narrow-mindedness, prejudice, and polarization in American society. He presents research on aspects of how divisive relationships occur and function and outlines the social psychology of radicalism and research on psychological principles about the way the human mind processes information, particularly the social environment. He describes examples of radical speech, and discusses scientific research on human judgment processes; studies of how the principles occur in social, political, and religious beliefs; principles that categorize radical hearing in everyday lives; how intergroup relations contain seeds of polarization; principles that people can use to reduce or eliminate the influences of extremist rhetoric and selective hearing; and why people might not change their patterns of radical hearing. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)