Description

For introductory psychology courses at two-year and four-year institutions.

This innovative, 11-chapter text examines psychological issues from the levels of the brain, person, and group (social world) to help students actively apply psychology to their lives. Offered in digital format or on-demand custom format.

Through their own research, clinical work, and experiences as teachers, Stephen Kosslyn and Robin Rosenberg have found that exploring psychology from multiple perspectives further enhances learning. Examining psychological concepts from the levels of the brain (biological factors), the person (beliefs, desires, and feelings), and the group (social, cultural, and environmental factors) -- and by considering how events at these levels interact -- helps students organize and integrate topics within and across chapters and actively apply psychology to their lives.

Features

Includes the new “Think Like a Psychologist” feature. These are marginal notes with critical thinking questions that lead students to apply related content to their lives. Some of these notes include 'Do It!' activities, which invite the student either to collect data about a phenomenon or to try a specific psychological activity; some of these notes invite the student to go to MyPsychLab to download a document for use with the activity (such as relaxation induction). The 'Think Like a Psychologist' feature is placed in the margin adjacent to related content.

· Integrates the field and brings psychology into focus for students by examining concepts through the lenses of the brain, the person, and the group. The popular “Looking at Levels” feature engages students by exploring an aspect of psychology through these three lenses.

· Features student-friendly learning tools, including built-in study aids such as“Looking Ahead: Learning Objectives” section preview questions, “Looking Back” sections that provide brief answers to the “Looking Ahead” questions. “Let's Review” chapter summaries, key terms lists, and end-of-chapter Practice Tests, all help students focus on the core concepts.

· Includes a high-interest chapter story that begins each chapter and is revisited throughout, providing a framework for the chapter's discussion of relevant psychological theories and research. These stories allow students to see how the psychological material covered in the chapter might apply to people outside of a psychological laboratory and they also make the material more interesting and applicable to their lives, thereby facilitating learning and remembering.

· Includes instructive art, thoughtfully placed throughout the text, making the text particularly helpful for visual learners. For example, classic experiments are described and visually displayed as multi-panel illustrations, helping students better understand and remember these studies through showing and telling.

· Features well-known and highly regarded authors: Stephen Kosslyn, formerly professor of psychology, 'head tutor,' and Dean of Social Science at Harvard University, and now professor of psychology at Stanford University, where he is director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Kosslyn's research has focused on the nature of visual mental imagery and visual communication. Robin Rosenberg is a clinical psychologist, board certified in clinical psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology and a fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology. She has a private practice and has taught introductory psychology at Lesley College. She also uses superhero stories to explain psychological phenomena.

New to this Edition

Additions:

General changes in this edition:

· The entire book has been extensively rewritten so that it is easy to use when studying. The chapters have often been reorganized, and the flow improved so that key ideas, findings, and illustrative examples fit together seamlessly.

· Increased use of numbered and bulleted lists to help students identify the key points of discussion.

Chapter 1:

• Revised introduction to the concept of 'levels of analysis,' with new analogies.

· Addition of positive psychology coverage·

Chapter 2

· Expanded discussion of mental processes

· Expanded analogy regarding neurons and their role in brain functioning

· Many additional examples of and analogies related to neurons, neurotransmitters, brain functioning and genetics throughout the chapter (e.g., the fight-or-flight response, the effects of stress, MEG; “tuning genetic program” and the relationship between genes and environment)

· Looking at Levels: The Musical Brain revised to include a discussion of musical preferences and stereotypes

· New table summarizes various techniques used to study brain function (Table 2)

Chapter 3

· Added general discussion of sensation and perception at the beginning of chapter (before discussing vision)

· Additional examples of and analogies throughout (e.g., thresholds and absolute thresholds, p. 3-6; bias, p. 3-9; bias versus sensitivity trade-off; color mixing; opponent process theory of color vision; perceptual organization, perceptual constancy; static cues; top-down processing; cerebral lateralization; more direct comparisons between vision and hearing; categorical perception)

· Additional research about telepathy

Chapter 4:

· More extended discussion of associative versus nonassociative learning.

· More extended discussion of forward conditioning.

· More discussion of the role of mental processes in classical conditioning.

· Additional examples of and analogies throughout (e.g., mental imagery and classical conditioning; placebo and classical conditioning; latent learning versus cognitive learning; learning from models)

· Reworked sections on:

· the brain’s role in classical conditioning;

· the brain’s role in operant conditioning;

· comparing classical and operant conditioning

· New brief discussion of the dopamine reward system.

· Extended discussion on exposure treatment.

· New Looking at Levels on Chemotherapy

· New material on stimulus-response psychology.

Chapter 5:

· Reworked or extended sections on short-term memory; implicit versus explicit memory; priming of perception or behavior; intentional forgetting

· Added section on short-term memory and consciousness, prospection

· Additional examples of and analogies throughout (e.g., moving information between LTM and STM; distinguishing between LTM and STM; depth of processing; breadth of processing; elaborative encoding; semantic memories; nonassociative learning; knockout mice; recognition; state dependent retrieval; chunking; hierarchical organization)

Chapter 6:

· Reworked or extended sections on interlocking mechanisms of language; bilingualism; putting words into thoughts; visual mental imagery and other types of imagery; overview of concepts; prototypes; heuristics; IQ sections revised to include WAIS-IV and WISC-IV (including revised Table 2); microenvironment; selecting the environment

· Additional examples of and analogies throughout (e.g., grammar; syntax; overcoming functional fixedness; inductive reasoning; norming; emotional intelligence

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Science of Psychology: History and Research Methods

Chapter 2: The Biology of Mind and Behavior: The Brain in Action

Chapter 3: Sensation and Perception: How the World Enters the Mind

Chapter 4: Learning: How Experience Changes Us

Chapter 5: Memory: Living With Yesterday

Chapter 6: Language, Thinking, and Intelligence: What Humans Do Best

Chapter 7: Emotion and Motivation: Feeling and Striving

Chapter 8: Personality: Vive La Difference!

Chapter 9: Psychology Over the Life Span: Growing Up, Growing Older, Growing Wiser

Chapter 10: Stress, Health, and Coping: Dealing With Life

Chapter 11: Social Psychology: Meeting of the Minds

Appendices: Statistics/How to Think about Research Studies