Complete Psychology

Graham Davey, Christopher Sterling, Andy Field, Ian Albery, Chris Sterling, Ian Albery

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781444164244
• Edizione: 2
• Argomento: Psychology
• Categoria: History & Theory in Psychology

The new edition of Complete Psychology is the definitive undergraduate textbook. It not only fits exactly with the very latest BPS curriculum and offers integrated web support for students and lecturers, but it also includes guidance on study skills, research methods, statistics and careers. Complete Psychology provides excellent coverage of the major areas of study. Each chapter has been fully updated to reflect changes in the field and to include examples of psychology in applied settings, and further reading sections have been expanded. The companion website, www.completepsychology.co.uk, has also been fully revised and now contains chapter summaries, author pages, downloadable presentations, useful web links, multiple choice questions, essay questions and an electronic glossary. Written by an experienced and respected team of authors, this highly accessible, comprehensive text is illustrated in full colour, and quite simply covers everything students need for their first-year studies as well as being an invaluable reference and revision tool for second and third years.

1

Introduction

What is psychology?

Psychology is about people. In particular, it is about why people do the things they do. It is also about groups of people. Why do people in the same group behave differently? Why are some people leaders and other people followers? Psychology is also about helping people. It enables us to develop treatments for psychological problems, put together effective health campaigns, facilitate education, help catch criminal offenders and increase productivity and health in the workplace. Psychology is also about the very basis of our biology. These are the things we take for granted and never even have to think about: our response to pain, riding a bicycle, experiencing a visual illusion or learning to speak. Psychology is also about science and the scientific investigation of our human nature and the social and biological contexts in which we live. But, in addition to all this – and unlike most other disciplines – psychology is about you. When you learn about psychology, you don’t just learn about why other people do the things they do, you also learn about yourself – both as a social being and a biological organism – and why you do the things you do. It is very rarely that a student of psychology completes a course without encountering an unexpected insight into her own psychology or acquiring some knowledge that contributes to her personal growth as an individual.

That’s quite a lot! But that is why psychology is one of the most popular undergraduate degrees the world over and why psychology teaching at all levels has rapidly expanded since the mid-1990s. It is difficult to conceive of any other discipline that gives the student a broader and more rounded education than psychology. The psychology graduate doesn’t just learn about people’s behaviour and their personality and intelligence (the kinds of knowledge you might think is useful in many areas of applied psychology, such as occupational psychology, clinical psychology, educational psychology etc.), but they will inevitably acquire knowledge of the practical skills necessary to interact with people in a variety of occupations and careers. In understanding and comparing psychological theories, they will also acquire skills of critical thinking and analysis and the need to construct and analyse psychological studies will provide them with valuable methodology and statistical skills that will be prized by many employers. Finally, psychology graduates will also take with them a knowledge of the computing and presentational skills that are now part and parcel of an undergraduate degree in the social and biological sciences.

You will encounter a lot of people unfamiliar with psychology who claim it is all common sense! It has to be said that much of it is common sense – we all have to use a bit of psychology to negotiate our lives, regardless of whether we have studied it or not. However, much of what seems like common sense in psychology is often only so with hindsight. For example, one of the simplest rules of behaviour is that if you reward someone for doing something, they are more likely to do it again (the principle of reinforcement – Chapter 8, p.106). Yet how many of us actually verbalise that rule and use it consistently? Certainly not the mother who responds to her child’s tired tantrum in the street by buying him a toy or magazine or the person who showers her partner with attention and affection when he is having a jealous sulk at a party. While some psychology is common sense, much of what we learn about people when we study them closely is counterintuitive – and some of it is downright strange! Focus point 1.1 gives you the flavour of some of the unusual facts you will come across during the course of reading this book.

Potential of psychology

The largest proportion of students who apply to psychology degree programmes in the UK do so because they claim to have an interest in becoming an ‘applied’ psychologist. That is, they want to apply their knowledge of psychology in some way – perhaps as a clinical psychologist, an occupational psychologist or maybe as one of the increasing numbers of sports psychologists.

However, psychology is not just about generating professionals and practitioners who apply their practical skills in specific settings; it is also about personal understanding and personal growth and, to this extent, the discipline has a duty to ensure that psychological knowledge informs daily life. This means finding ways not only of helping people to understand themselves and why they do the things they do, but also of making people aware of the range of activities that psychology can be applied to – with positive effects! (For a view on how psychology is relevant to everyday life, see Davey, 2007).

FOCUS POINT 1.1

Is psychology just common sense?

■ Individuals who have reported being abducted by space aliens are prone to exhibit false memory effects (i.e. in laboratory tests of memory they claim to recall and recognise items they have never seen before – Chapter 33, p.489).

■ People who are shown a film of a car crash and then asked how quickly the cars were going when they ‘smashed’ into each other estimate the speed up to 30% more quickly than people who were asked the same question, but with the word ‘hit’ or ’collided used instead of ‘smashed’ (Chapter 14, p.197).

■ Most people have an optimistic bias! If are asked to respond to this statement ‘Compared with others your age, are your chances of developing cancer greater than them/same as them/less than them’, most people will judge themselves as being less at risk than their contemporaries. This is why it is often so difficult to get people to switch from unhealthy (e.g. smoking) to healthy behaviours (e.g. exercising regularly) (Chapter 35, p.527).

■ People tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as being uniquely applicable to themselves without realising that the same description can be applied to just about anyone! If you give a group of people a personality test, but ignore their answers and give everyone the same general positive feedback, everyone believes the description is true of them! This is what makes people so gullible to the vaguely worded predictions in horoscopes (Chapter 28, p.407).

■ Your spouse or partner is probably the person that you think you would find the easiest to recognise. But with the disorder apperceptive agnosia, the individual cannot recognise familiar objects (such as tables, chairs, book, etc.) because of a perceptual impairment. Sufferers often cannot point out a shape in a busy picture or recognise an object from an unusual angle. One sufferer couldn’t recognise his wife when she was standing in front of him, but could recognise her when she moved or when she spoke! (Chapter 12, p.159).

■ Would you raise the alarm if smoke suddenly started billowing into the room you were in? In one study, students attended an interview to discuss life at their university. While they were filling in a preliminary questionnaire smoke was pumped into the room. Participants were either by themselves, with two confederates who completely ignored the smoke or with two other people (non-confederates) who were strangers to them. About 75% of people who were alone reported the smoke but only about 38% of those in the other two groups did! (Chapter 24, p.356).

The psychology curriculum

This book presupposes no prior knowledge of psychology and so should be quite accessible to the interested layperson, as well as to those studying psychology at a range of different educational levels. It should also be accessible and informative for those studying disciplines related to psychology (such as medicine, nursing, speech therapy, counselling etc.).

The book’s contents reflect a standard curriculum for Level 1 undergraduate students and covers eight major areas of psychology. These are:

1 conceptual and historical issues on which psychology is based

2 psychobiology

3 cognitive psychology (covering the areas of perception, attention, memory, language and thinking)

4 developmental psychology

5 social psychology

6 personality and intelligence

7 psychopathology and health psychology

8 introduction to research methods and statistics.

These contents are supported by a comprehensive chapter on study skills designed specifically for psychology undergraduates, which covers basic study principles, tips on lecture note taking, writing essays and laboratory reports and revision and exam skills. A separate chapter on careers also gives the reader the fullest insight into how psychologists are employed – illustrated with the professionals’ own insights into their specialised areas of psychology.

Apart from ensuring the fullest coverage of the most recent psychology curriculum, we have presented this material in an accessible and structured way. The full colour presentation with plentiful illustrative material is designed to make the reading and learning experience as pleasant as possible. All chapters contain highlighted focus points to draw the reader’s attention to interesting or important facts and concepts. Chapters contain application and research method boxes designed to provide the reader with examples of practical applications of psychological knowledge and to familiarise you with the different types of research methodology that are used across the differing areas of psychology. Finally, every chapt...