Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : how we habituate to everything, all the time -- Part I. Well-being -- Happiness : on ice cream, the midlife crisis, and monogamy -- Variety : why you should chop up the good but swallow the bad whole -- Social media : how to wake up from a technologically induced coma -- Resilience : a crucial ingredient for a healthy mind -- Part II. Thinking and believing -- Creativity : overcoming the habituation of thought -- Lying : how to keep your child from growing a long nose -- (Mis)information : how to make people believe (almost) anything -- Part III. Health and safety -- Risk : what the Swedes taught us on högertrafikomläggningen -- Environment : you could live next to a pig farm in the south during summer -- Part IV. Society -- Progress : breaking the chains of low expectations -- Discrimination : the gentle Jew, the miniskirt-wearing scientist, and the children who were just not cool -- Tyranny : the devastatingly incremental nature of descent into fascism -- Law : putting a price on pain? -- Experiments in living : the future of dishabituation.