Discovering Psychology

More than any other introductory psychology textbook, the Hockenburys' brief book presents the discipline with a unique understanding of today's students--emphasizing its relevance and immediate impact on their lives. Without sacrificing science, the authors draw on personal experiences and anecdotes to illustrate essential concepts and important research direction. TheFourth Editionincorporates hundreds of new research studies throughout, with particular attention to areas of intensive current research and enduring student interest, including neuroscience, lifespan development, memory, and gender and culture issues. Also new is the dramatically enhanced media and supplements package, offering more ways than ever to help students make the study of psychology a part of their world.

In this fresh new offering to the Intro Psychology course, authors John Cacioppo and Laura Freberg portray psychology as being an integrative science in two ways. First, they have written a text that reflects psychology's rightful place as a hub science that draws from and is cited by research in many other fields. Second, this text presents psychology as a unified science that seeks a complete understanding of the human mind, rather than as a loosely organized set of autonomous subspecialties. As psychology moves rapidly toward maturity as an integrative, multidisciplinary field, the introductory course offers an opportunity to teach all of psychology in one place and at one time. This text reflects that evolution--and the authors' excitement about it.

This book is a landmark in contemporary cultural psychology. Ernest Boesch’s synthesis of ideas is the first comprehensive theory of culture in psychology since Wilhelm Wundt’s Völkerpsychologie of the first decades of the twentieth century. Cultural psychology of today is an attempt to advance the program of research that was charted out by Wundt—yet at times we are carefully avoiding direct recognition of such continuity. While Wundt’s experimental psychology has been hailed as the root for contemporary scientific psychology, the other side of his contribution— ethnographic analysis of folk traditions and higher psychological functions— has been largely discredited as something disconnected from the scientific realm. As an example of “soft” science—lacking the “hardness” of experimentation—it has been considered to be an esoteric hobby of the founding father of contemporary psychology. Of course that focus is profoundly wrong—the opposition “soft” versus “hard” just does not fit as a metalevel organizer of any science. Yet the rhetoric discounting the descriptive side of Wundt’s psychology is merely an act of social guidance of what psychologists do—not a way of creating knowledge.

The life of a 1960s psychology student. This first volume of the "Through a Hedge Backwards" memoir series captures the life of a student of psychology at Queensland University in ultra-conservative Brisbane in the swinging sixties. The author has an intimate knowledge of psychology in Australia and provides an insider's view of the development of the profession through its adolescent years. The book delivers a critical examination of the behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings to resolve the serious issues facing the profession, told against the backdrop of the social history of the times. This critique of the history and politics of Australian psychology is leavened with controversial theories, anecdotes of student life, street marches, wild parties and the life of a singer-songwriter. And Ian has a secret problem. He is uncoordinated, half-blind, dyslexic and can't hold his drink. His struggle to overcome these hidden weaknesses is woven through his story with a light but thoughtful touch.

This study presents a student-friendly introduction to the principal research methodology techniques of psychology. Using a narrative approach, the text explains the complexities of research and the vital role it has played in the development of the field.

An introduction to psychology course. The author's updating and integrated use of the SQ3R learning system (Survey, Question, Read, Rehearse, Review) help to make the text accessible. A comprehensive supplements package is available to help both students and instructors.

To help you review concepts and succeed on exams, this guide provides expanded chapter outlines correlated to learning objectives from the text, self-quizzing materials not found on the Student Book Companion Website, and answers to the text's Interim Summary and Chapter Review questions. It also includes new coloring and labeling exercises based on text art.

This acclaimed classroom favourite makes the science of psychology come alive for students, with personal stories that exemplify important concepts in a student-friendly way and coverage of the field’s scientific foundations and advances. The substantially updated new edition extends the book’s focus on developing scientific literacy in the context of psychology, with new features in print and in the book’s new online course space, LaunchPad. These features are the result of the book’s most dramatic addition—Sandra Hockenbury’s new writing partnership with co-author, Susan Nolan, who shares her belief that the introductory course can help all kinds of students develop a real understanding of psychology and lasting scientific literacy without sacrificing the field’s research core. The book can also be purchased with the breakthrough online resource, LaunchPad, which offers innovative media content, curated and organised for easy assignability. LaunchPad's intuitive interface presents quizzing, flashcards, animations and much more to make learning actively engaging.