 |
|
Great Psychology Books
Photo Credit: Peter Merholz Welcome to The All About Psychology Book of The Month page. Only the best, fascinating and most compelling psychology books will be featured here. Anybody looking for recommended psychology textbooks within specific fields of psychology should visit the appropriate branch of psychology listed on the Topic Areas section of the website. July 2008The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker
Editorial Review From Publishers Weekly In his last outing, How the Mind Works, the author of the well-received The Language Instinct made a case for evolutionary psychology or the view that human beings have a hard-wired nature that evolved over time. This book returns to that still-controversial territory in order to shore it up in the public sphere. Drawing on decades of research in the "sciences of human nature," Pinker, a chaired professor of psychology at MIT, attacks the notion that an infant's mind is a blank slate, arguing instead that human beings have an inherited universal structure shaped by the demands made upon the species for survival, albeit with plenty of room for cultural and individual variation. For those who have been following the sciences in question including cognitive science, neuroscience, behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology much of the evidence will be familiar, yet Pinker's clear and witty presentation, complete with comic strips and allusions to writers from Woody Allen to Emily Dickinson, keeps the material fresh. What might amaze is the persistent, often vitriolic resistance to these findings Pinker presents and systematically takes apart, decrying the hold of the "blank slate" and other orthodoxies on intellectual life. He goes on to tour what science currently claims to know about human nature, including its cognitive, intuitive and emotional faculties, and shows what light this research can shed on such thorny topics as gender inequality, child-rearing and modern art. See following link for more details: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature June 2008The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil By Philip Zimbardo
Book Description What makes good people do bad things? How can moral people be seduced to act immorally? Where is the line separating good from evil, and who is in danger of crossing it? Renowned social psychologist Philip Zimbardo has the answers, and in The Lucifer Effect he explains how–and the myriad reasons why–we are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side.” Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women. Zimbardo is perhaps best known as the creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Here, for the first time and in detail, he tells the full story of this landmark study, in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into “guards” and “inmates” and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners. By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the “bad apple” with that of the “bad barrel”–the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around. This is a book that dares to hold a mirror up to mankind, showing us that we might not be who we think we are. While forcing us to reexamine what we are capable of doing when caught up in the crucible of behavioral dynamics, though, Zimbardo also offers hope. We are capable of resisting evil, he argues, and can even teach ourselves to act heroically. Like Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, The Lucifer Effect is a shocking, engrossing study that will change the way we view human behavior. See following link for more details: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil May 2008Psychology and Life by Richard J. Gerrig & Philip G. Zimbardo
Book Description This classic book is built around the central theme of presenting psychology as a science and applying that science to our daily lives. Psychology and Life continues to provide a rigorous, research-based presentation that demonstrates that this research has immediate in daily life. For Intro Psychology students, or anyone with an interest in the subject. See following link for more details: Psychology and Life (MyPsychLab Series) April 2008Forty Studies that Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research by Roger R Hock
Book Description This unique book closes the gap between psychology books and the research that made them possible. Its journey through the “headline history” of psychology presents 40 of the most famous studies in the history of the science, and subsequent follow-up studies that expanded their findings and relevance. Readers are granted a valuable insider's look at the studies that continue to be cited most frequently, stirred up the most controversy when they were published, sparked the most subsequent related research, opened new fields of psychological exploration, and changed most dramatically our knowledge of human behavior. See following link for more details: March 2008Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Editorial Review Aristotle observed 2300 years ago that more than anything men and women seek happiness. Csikszentmihalyi (psychology, Univ. of Chicago) has for 25 years made similar observations regarding "flow," a field of behavioral science examining connections between satisfaction and daily activities. A flow state ensues when one is engaged in self-controlled, goal-related, meaningful actions. Data regarding flow were collected on thousands of individuals, from mountain climbers to chess players. This thoroughly researched study is an intriguing look at the age-old problem of the pursuit of happiness and how, through conscious effort, we may more easily attain it. Recommended for general readers. (Terry McMaster, Utica Coll. of Syracuse Univ. Lib., N.Y). See following link for more details: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Bookmark & Share This Page
Go From Psychology Books Back To The Home Page
|
