At our learning institution, the preponderance of our students select General Psychology in order to fulfill their general education requirement. Since most of our students are not psychology majors, texts oriented towards giving a student an adequate primer of the field are preferred. Hence, this text seems to be a good selection for this type of student. The author's approach to relevant topical areas is an overarching one. This text sufficiently covers the subfields in psychology, without bogging down the reader in the intricacies of our discipline. In particular, I appreciated this author's approach to human development, which tends to be a content heavy area. Additionally, the learning objectives at the beginning of the chapter give a clear roadmap to the reader. The content area named "key takeaways" give the reader a nice annotated summary of important topical areas. For professors who want to be more indulgent in the content, the author provides a section on "exercises and critical thinking." The questions posed appear to be sufficiently provocative and relevant.
There are intra-correlations made within each chapter; however, there are few inter-connections made between different chapters. Within each chapter, there is consistency between the concept presented, its description, and the examples used to further elucidate its meaning. For those seeking to give a student a more holistic view of psychology, the text is limited. For example, if you are seeking to provide students a broader sense of how internal emotions and cognitions along with external social events interface, you will have to create your own addendum to the chapter content.
chapter 14 and 15 of psychology textbook by hockenbury
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Each chapter covers a specific topical area in psychology that is later expanded upon in the chapter. The content areas are directly aligned with the learning objectives presented at the beginning of the chapter and flow into the key summary points very well. The chapter gives a sufficient amount of information to the reader to answer the critical thinking questions posed at the end of the chapter.
The book doesn't necessarily cover every conceivable topic in psychology, but it covers all of the main subfields in psychology and presents at least a few of the central findings, concepts, and theories in each subfield. In some respects, the book strikes me as more focused and less sprawling than many introductory psychology textbooks. A student who reads this book may be less likely to be overwhelmed with information, but at the same would be able to grasp a clear sense of general issues, research issues, and research findings in each topic. According to the introduction, the author has focused intentionally on presenting topics in a way that leaves students with a sense of coherence about the field rather than with a set of random facts. The critical thinking questions at the end of the sections are helpful in addressing this focus.
The writing is clear both at the micro level of individual sentences and paragraphs and at the macro level of lucid organization. The writing style aims for a literate audience and in that sense may challenge students who need simpler prose and multiple real life examples to make concepts clear. Some of the mainstream publisher textbooks excel in examples that make the concepts come alive, and this book has less of those. There are also fewer helpful additions such as definitions of terms in the margins that one would see in other textbooks. However, each chapter in this book includes several compelling examples that are explained well, and the writing is crisp and clear, which I greatly appreciate. There is also a bit more depth than many books provide about psychological research, which I personally love about this book, but which may not work for every student audience. Some other textbooks are pitched at a simpler level - but these books can still let students get bogged down in the sheer volume of information, a problem that this book often avoids successfully. Finally, this book includes numerous video clips, which are a terrific addition and really strengthen the clarity of the information provided.
Each chapter covers one subfield of psychology (e.g, developmental, cognitive) and in turn is divided into several subsections of several pages each. One could easily rearrange or even drop a few chapters, and within a chapter, while one would want to go in order of concepts from basic at the beginning to more complex at the end, one could easily drop a subsection.
I thought that cultural presentation was one of the weaker areas of this book. While there are some references to a variety of cultures and some photos of people from a variety of backgrounds, some of the written statements about culture were simplistic (e.g., on p. 26, a sentence reads, "Psychologists have found that there is a fundamental difference in social norms between Western cultures (including those in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand) and East Asian cultures (including those in China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, India, and Southeast Asia)." There is no mention of nuance, of common ground, or of the variability among individuals within cultures.). In the section on intelligence, the author mentions variation among US racial and ethnic groups in IQ scores, but offers only a superficial explanation of why these differences exist. There is no mention of the role that discrimination plays in perpetuating some of these differences. In the chapter on social psychology, the material on stereotyping and prejudice was accurate, but again presented with less depth than I would prefer. While I did not see offensive material, I thought the author could have done more to present cultural variation and various cultural issues with nuance and depth.
From what I read, the textbook seems accurate as far as its content. However, it is inaccurate regarding representing an Introductory to Psychology textbook. The chapters discuss only a few topics instead of addressing a number of vital subjects that introductory psychology students need to master.
The way that these chapters are organized seems arbitrary and therefore unclear. Again, in order for a textbook to be considered for adoption, it must not only be clear but also be thorough to cover all of the material needed for an introductory class.
The text aligns well with APA standards for Introductory Psychology. The devil is in the details, however. I have reviewed a number of intro textbooks in developing the curriculum for a dual enrollment psychology course. I have found no one text...read more
The text aligns well with APA standards for Introductory Psychology. The devil is in the details, however. I have reviewed a number of intro textbooks in developing the curriculum for a dual enrollment psychology course. I have found no one text that covers every possible aspect of the standards. That being said, this text provides materials covering the APA standards on a level commensurate with leading introductory texts. One constructive criticism would be to add a list of key terms for each section and/or chapter. Such lists are provided in other open source texts and seem very useful.
A few emerging areas of psychology, such as health psychology and I/O psychology are not represented. While I/O is not currently commonplace in other introductory texts, Stress and Health typically warrants a chapter. Stress is included in the...read more
A few emerging areas of psychology, such as health psychology and I/O psychology are not represented. While I/O is not currently commonplace in other introductory texts, Stress and Health typically warrants a chapter. Stress is included in the chapter on Emotion and Motivation, which perhaps negates the need for a separate chapter (since stress is a major component of health psychology). Additionally, there is little mention of Vygotsky in Chapter 6. If that is important to an instructor, s/he will need to augment. Finally, there does seem to be a lot of attention paid to PTSD; it is significantly discussed in 3-4 chapters. This is not necessarily a critical comment, but something that stood out in my review of the text.
This book cover most of the topics for the introduction to Psychology course. though the topic of stress, Coping and Health Psychology. The text and easy to understand and presented in a great manner. There are 14 chapters in total giving a complete understanding of the introductory course for psychology.
I compared this textbook with the textbook I currently use, "Discovering Psychology, 7th edition," by Hockenbury, Nolan, and Hockenbury. The textbook I currently use has only 14 chapters and two Appendices. I have seen textbooks with more...read more
I compared this textbook with the textbook I currently use, "Discovering Psychology, 7th edition," by Hockenbury, Nolan, and Hockenbury. The textbook I currently use has only 14 chapters and two Appendices. I have seen textbooks with more chapters that may perhaps also be more comprehensive, but may also be overwhelming to get through in a traditional 16 week course. Therefore, I prefer the more brief or concise versions of introductory textbooks. I think this textbook is comparable in comprehensiveness to the textbook I currently use, with one major exception: "Introduction to Psychology has no separate chapter on "Stress, Health, and Coping." Although this topic is addressed in Chapter 8 with "emotion," my preference would be to have an entirely separate chapter devoted to stress (especially since combining motivation and emotion into one chapter is already a lot of material). Here are a few of my thoughts on the comprehensiveness of each chapter:
Chapter 1: Missing from the "Schools of Psychology" table: Biological, Humanistic, Positive Psychology, and Evolutionary Psychology. The text I currently use discusses Structuralism and Functionalism within the section on the history of psychology, but separates out the "origins of psychology" (where Structuralism and Functionalism are discussed) from "contemporary psychology." Also, although I realize that it would be impossible to include everyone, I feel like there are too many important psychologists missing from the timeline, and the timeline should add in what some of the early theorists did. I do like how Chapters 1 and 2 give separate attention to the history of psychology and the scientific method (my current textbook combines the two). I like how this chapter differentiates between values and facts, and discusses the potential limitations of way we collect and interpret data to understand behavior in our everyday lives. 2ff7e9595c
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