Psychology and life / Richard Gerrig.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This text emphasizes the science of psychology, with a special focus on applying psychology to students' daily lives. This special edition is tied to the 'Discovering Psychology' video series, produced by WGBH Boston with the American Psychological Association.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Brief Table of Contents
• Chapter 1 Psychology and Life
• Chapter 2 Research Methods In Psychology
• Chapter 3 The Biological and Evolutionary Bases Of Behavior
• Chapter 4 Sensation and Perception
• Chapter 5 Mind, Consciousness, and Alternate States
• Chapter 6 Learning and Behavior Analysis
• Chapter 7 Memory
• Chapter 8 Cognitive Processes
• Chapter 9 Intelligence and Intelligence Assessment
• Chapter 10 Human Development Across The Life Span
• Chapter 11 Motivation
• Chapter 12 Emotion, Stress, and Health
• Chapter 13 Understanding Human Personality
• Chapter 14 Psychological Disorders
• Chapter 15 Therapies For Psychological Disorders
• Chapter 16 Social Psychology
• Full Table of Contents
• 1 Psychology and Life
• What Makes Psychology Unique?
• Definitions
• The Goals of Psychology
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: Why Do Friendships End?
• The Evolution Of Modern Psychology
• Psychology's Historical Foundations
• Women as Pioneering Researchers
• Perspectives on Psychology
• What Psychologists Do
• Psychology in Your Life: In What Ways Do Psychologists Participate in the Legal System?
• How to Use This Text
• Study Strategies
• Study Techniques
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 2 Research Methods In Psychology
• The Process of Research
• Observer Biases and Operational Definitions
• Experimental Methods: Alternative Explanations and the Need for Controls
• Correlational Methods
• Subliminal Influence?
• Psychology in Your Life: Can Survey Research Affect Your Attitudes?
• Psychological Measurement
• Achieving Reliability and Validity
• Self-Report Measures
• Behavioral Measures and Observations
• Ethical Issues In Human And Animal Research
• Informed Consent
• Risk/Gain Assessment
• Intentional Deception
• Debriefing
• Issues in Animal Research
• Becoming a Wiser Research Consumer
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: Why is Skill with Numbers Important?
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• Statistical Supplement
• Understanding Statistics: Analyzing Data And Forming Conclusions
• Analyzing The Data
• Descriptive Statistics
• Inferential Statistics
• Becoming A Wise Consumer Of Statistics
• Key Terms
• 3 The Biological and Evolutionary Bases of Behavior
• Heredity and Behavior
• Evolution and Natural Selection
• Variation in the Human Genotype
• The Nervous System in Action
• The Neuron
• Action Potentials
• Synaptic Transmission
• Neurotransmitters and Their Functions
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: What Does "It's Genetic" Mean?
• Biology and Behavior
• Eavesdropping on the Brain
• The Nervous System
• Brain Structures and Their Functions
• Hemispheric Lateralization
• The Endocrine System
• Plasticity and Neurogenesis: Our Changing Brains
• Psychology in Your Life: How Does Your Brain Determine Trust?
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 4 Sensation and Perception
• Sensory Knowledge of the World
• The Proximal and Distal Stimuli
• Psychophysics
• From Physical Events to Mental Events
• The Visual System
• The Human Eye
• The Pupil and the Lens
• The Retina
• Processes in the Brain
• Seeing Color
• Hearing
• The Physics of Sound
• Psychological Dimensions of Sound
• The Physiology of Hearing
• Your Other Senses
• Smell
• Taste
• Touch and Skin Senses
• The Vestibular and Kinesthetic Senses
• Pain
• Psychology in Your Life: What is Eating "Hot" Food Painful?
• Organizational Processes in Perception
• Attentional Processes
• Principles of Perceptual Grouping
• Spatial and Temporal Integration
• Motion Perception
• Depth Perception
• Perceptual Constancies
• Illusions
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: Are Drivers Distracted When They Use Their Cell Phones?
• Identification and Recognition Processes
• Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processes
• The Influence of Contexts and Expectations
• Final Lessons
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 5 Mind, Consciousness, and Alternate States
• The Contents of Consciousness
• Awareness and Consciousness
• Studying the Contents of Consciousness
• The Functions of Consciousness
• The Uses of Consciousness
• Studying the Functions of Consciousness
• Sleep and Dreams
• Circadian Rhythms
• The Sleep Cycle
• Why Sleep?
• Sleep Disorders
• Dreams: Theater of the Mind
• Psychology in Your Life: Are You a Morning Type or an Evening Type?
• Altered States of Consciousness
• Lucid Dreaming
• Hypnosis
• Meditation
• Mind-Altering Drugs
• Dependence and Addiction
• Varieties of Psychoactive Drugs
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: What Can We Learn from "The Munchies"?
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 6 Learning and Behavior Analysis
• The Study of Learning
• What Is Learning?
• Behaviorism and Behavior Analysis
• Classical Conditioning: Learning Predictable Signals
• Pavlov's Surprising Observation
• Processes of Conditioning
• Focus on Acquisition
• Applications of Classical Conditioning
• Psychology in Your Life: How Does Classical Conditioning Affect Cancer Treatment?
• Operant Conditioning: Learning About Consequences
• The Law of Effect
• Experimental Analysis of Behavior
• Reinforcement Contingencies
• Properties of Reinforcers
• Schedules of Reinforcement
• Shaping
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: To Spank or Not to Spank?
• Biology and Learning
• Instinctual Drift
• Taste-Aversion Learning
• Cognitive Influences on Learning
• Comparative Cognition
• Observational Learning
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 7 Memory
• What is Memory?
• Functions of Memory
• An Overview of Memory Processes
• Memory Use for the Short-Term
• Iconic Memory
• Short-Term Memory
• Working Memory
• Long-Term Memory: Encoding and Retrieval
• Retrieval Cues
• Context and Encoding
• The Processes of Encoding and Retrieval
• Why We Forget
• Improving Memory for Unstructured Information
• Metamemory
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: How Can Memory Research Help Your Prepare for Exams?
• Structures in Long-Term Memory
• Memory Structures
• Remembering as a Reconstructive Process
• Biological Aspects of Memory
• Searching for the Engram
• Memory Disorders
• Brain Imaging
• Psychology in Your Life: Why Does Alzheimer's Disease Affect Memory?
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 8 Cognitive Processes
• Studying Cognition
• Discovering the Processes of Mind
• Mental Processes and Mental Resources
• Language Use
• Language Production
• Language Understanding
• Language and Evolution
• Language, Thought, and Culture
• Psychology in Your Life: Why and How Do People Lie?
• Visual Cognition
• Using Visual Representations
• Combining Verbal and Visual Representations
• Problem Solving and Reasoning
• Problem Solving
• Deductive Reasoning
• Inductive Reasoning
• Judgment and Decision Making
• Heuristics and Judgment
• The Psychology of Decision Making
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: Can Political Experts Predict the Future?
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 9 Intelligence and Intelligence Assessment
• What is Assessment?
• History of Assessment
• Basic Features of Formal Assessment
• Intelligence Assessment
• The Origins of Intelligence Testing
• IQ Tests
• Extremes of Intelligence
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: Can You Trust Assessment on the Web?
• Theories of Intelligence
• Psychometric Theories of Intelligence
• Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
• Gardner's Multiple Intelligences and Emotional Intelligence
• The Politics of Intelligence
• The History of Group Comparisons
• Heredity and IQ
• Environments and IQ
• Culture and the Validity of IQ Tests
• Creativity
• Assessing Creativity and the Link to Intelligence
• Extremes of Creativity
• Psychology in Your Life: How Can You Become More Creative?
• Assessment and Society
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 10 Human Development Across the Life Span
• Studying Development
• Physical Development Across the Life Span
• Prenatal and Childhood Development
• Physical Development in Adolescence
• Physical Changes in Adulthood
• Cognitive Development Across the Life Span
• Piaget's Insights Into Mental Development
• Contemporary Perspectives on Early Cognitive Development
• Cognitive Development in Adulthood
• Psychology in Your Life: Will Your Brain Work Differently as You Age?
• Acquiring Language
• Perceiving Speech and Perceiving Words
• Learning Word Meanings
• Acquiring Grammar
• Social Development Across the Life Span
• Erikson's Psychosocial Stages
• Social Development in Childhood
• Social Development in Adolescence
• Social Development in Adulthood
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: How Does Day Care Affect Children's Development?
• Sex and Gender Differences
• Sex Differences
• Gender Identity and Gender Roles
• Moral Development
• Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Reasoning
• Gender and Cultural Perspectives on Moral Reasoning
• Learning to Age Successfully
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 11 Motivation
• Understanding Motivation
• Functions of Motivational Concepts
• Sources of Motivation
• A Hierarchy of Needs
• EATING
• The Physiology of Eating
• The Psychology of Eating
• Psychology in Your Life: How Does the Presence of Others Influence Your Eating?
• Sexual Behaviors
• Nonhuman Sexual Behaviors
• Human Sexual Arousal and Response
• The Evolution of Sexual Behaviors
• Sexual Norms
• Homosexuality
• Motivation for Personal Achievement
• Need for Achievement
• Attributions for Success and Failure
• Work and Organizational Psychology
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: How Does Motivation Affect Academic Achievement?
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 12 Emotion, Stress, and Health
• Emotions
• Basic Emotions and Culture
• Theories of Emotion
• The Impact of Mood and Emotions
• Subjective Well-Being
• Psychology in Your Life: Can You Accurately Predict Your Future Emotions?
• Stress of Living
• Physiological Stress Reactions
• Psychological Stress Reactions
• Coping with Stress
• Positive Effects of Stress
• Health Psychology
• The Biopsychosocial Model of Health
• Health Promotion
• Treatment
• Personality and Health
• Job Burnout and the Health-Care System
• A Toast to Your Health
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: Can Health Psychology Help You Get More Exercise?
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 13 Understanding Human Personality
• Type and Trait Personality Theories
• Categorizing by Types
• Describing with Traits
• Traits and Heritability
• Do Traits Predict Behaviors?
• Evaluation of Type and Trait Theories
• Psychodynamic Theories
• Freudian Psychoanalysis
• Evaluation of Freudian Theory
• Extending Psychodynamic Theories
• Psychology in Your Life: Why Are Some People Shy?
• Humanistic Theories
• Features of Humanistic Theories
• Evaluation of Humanistic Theories
• Social-Learning and Cognitive Theories
• Rotter's Expectancy Theory
• Mischel's Cognitive-Affective Personality Theory
• Bandura's Cognitive Social-Learning Theory
• Cantor's Social Intelligence Theory
• Evaluation of Social-Learning and Cognitive Theories
• Self Theories
• Dynamic Aspects of Self-Concepts
• Self-Esteem
• The Cultural Construction of Self
• Evaluation of Self Theories
• Comparing Personality Theories
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: How is Personality Conveyed in Cyberspace?
• Assessing Personality
• Objective Tests
• Projective Tests
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 14 Psychological Disorders
• The Nature of Psychological Disorders
• Deciding What Is Abnormal
• The Problem of Objectivity
• Classifying Psychological Disorders
• The Etiology of Psychopathology
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: How Do Disorders Enter DSM?
• Anxiety Disorders
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Panic Disorder
• Phobias
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
• Causes of Anxiety Disorders
• Mood Disorders
• Major Depressive Disorder
• Bipolar Disorder
• Causes of Mood Disorders
• Gender Differences in Depression
• Suicide
• Psychology in Your Life: How Can We Pinpoint Interactions of Nature and Nurture?
• Personality Disorders
• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Somatoform and Dissociative Disorders
• Somatoform Disorders
• Dissociative Disorders
• Schizophrenic Disorders
• Major Types of Schizophrenia
• Causes of Schizophrenia
• Psychological Disorders of Childhood
• Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
• Autistic Disorder
• The Stigma of Mental Illness
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 15 Therapies for Psychological Disorders
• The Therapeutic Context
• Goals and Major Therapies
• Therapists and Therapeutic Settings
• Diversity Issues in Psychotherapy
• Historical Perspectives on Institutional Treatment
• Psychodynamic Therapies
• Freudian Psychoanalysis
• Later Psychodynamic Therapies
• Psychology in Your Life: Are Lives Haunted by Repressed Memories?
• Behavior Therapies
• Counterconditioning
• Contingency Management
• Social-Learning Therapy
• Generalization Techniques
• Cognitive Therapies
• Changing False Beliefs
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Humanistic Therapies
• Client-Centered Therapy
• Gestalt Therapy
• Group Therapies
• Couple and Family Therapy
• Community Support Groups
• Biomedical Therapies
• Drug Therapy
• Psychosurgery
• ECT and rTMS
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: Does Therapy Affect Brain Activity?
• Treatment Evaluation and Prevention Strategies
• Evaluating Therapeutic Effectiveness
• Prevention Strategies
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide
• 16 Social Psychology
• Constructing Social Reality
• The Origins of Attribution Theory
• The Fundamental Attribution Error
• Self-Serving Biases
• Expectations and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• The Power of the Situation
• Roles and Rules
• Social Norms
• Conformity
• Decision Making in Groups
• Obedience to Authority
• Attitudes, Attitude Change, and Action
• Attitudes and Behaviors
• Processes of Persuasion
• Persuasion by Your Own Actions
• Compliance
• Prejudice
• Origins of Prejudice
• Effects of Stereotypes
• Reversing Prejudice
• Social Relationships
• Liking
• Loving
• Psychology in Your Life: In What Ways Are You Like a Chameleon?
• Aggression, Altruism, and Prosocial Behavior
• Individual Differences in Aggression
• Situational Influences on Aggression
• The Roots of Prosocial Behavior
• The Effects of the Situation on Prosocial Behavior
• Critical Thinking in Your Life: How Can You Get People to Volunteer?
• A Personal Endnote
• Recapping Main Points
• Key Terms
• Practice Test
• Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Richard J. Gerrig is a professor of psychology at Stony Brook University. Before joining the Stony Brook faculty, Gerrig taught at Yale University, where he was awarded the Lex Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences. Gerrig's research on cognitive psychological aspects of language use has been widely published. One line of work examines the mental processes that underlie efficient communication. A second research program considers the cognitive and emotional changes readers experience when they are transported to the worlds of stories. His book Experiencing Narrative Worlds was published by Yale University Press. Gerrig is a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. He is also an associate editor of Psychonomic Bulletin & Review . Gerrig is the proud father of Alexandra, who at age 18 provides substantial and valuable advice about many aspects of psychology and life. Life on Long Island is greatly enhanced by the guidance and support of Timothy Peterson.

P hilip G. Zimbardo is an emeritus professor of psychology at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1968, after earlier teaching at Yale University, New York University, and Columbia University. He also continues to teach att he Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey. Zimbardo is internationally recognized as the "voice and face of contemporary psychology" through his widely seen PBS-TV series, Discovering Psychology, his media appearances, best-selling trade books on shyness, and his classic research, The Stanford Prison Experiment. His current research interests are in the domain of experimental social psychology, with a scattered emphasis on everything interesting to study from shyness to time perspective, persuasion, cults, madness, violence, vandalism, political psychology, and terrorism. Zimbardo has been a prolific, innovative researcher across a number of fields in social and general psychology, with more than 300 professional articles and chapters and 50 books to his credit. To recognize the breadth of his research achievements, the American Psychological Association presented Zimbardo with the Ernest Hilgard Award for lifetime contributions to general psychology. He has also won the Vaclav Havel Foundation Award for his body of research on the human condition. Zimbardo has been President of the Western Psychological Association (twice), President of the American Psychological Association, Chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP), and now Chair of the Western Psychological Foundation and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Policy, Education, and Research on Terrorism. He is most excited about the publication of his new trade book in March 2007 (Random House), which he has been working on intensely for the past several years. Its domain is the psychology of evil; its provocative title: "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil."