This brief, modular introduction to social psychology offers streamlined focus on issues such as belief and illusion, prejudice and diversity, and love and hate. The brevity of each of the book's 31 stand-alone modules makes this the perfect text for covering the core concepts in the field. The new edition includes expanded coverage of cultural diversity and the most current research from the 21st century.
David G. Myers is a professor of Psychology at Hope College in Michigan, and the author of 17 books, including popular textbooks entitled Psychology, Exploring Psychology, Social Psychology and several general-audience books dealing with issues related to Christian faith as well as scientific psychology.
Wouldn't normally add a textbook to this, but considering I've officially read the whole thing this semester I think it should count toward my reading goal.
David Myers manages to successfully summarize major social psychological theories within a real world and applied framework. His writing style (not just written for academics), examples, and discussions of central topics make social psychology accessible to a broad audience which is something the field needs. He also summarizes scientific results and applies ideas from outside an American context, which I find useful. In addition, I particularly like the final chapter. The topic of sustainability is crucial in our world but so often ignored.
Out of all the college psychology classes I have had the privilege of taking, Social Psych was probably my favorite. This was our assigned text and I read the whole book in a fairly short time. Myers held my attention and even had me laughing at times. Recommended for those interested in psychology!
I actually did read everything in this textbook for my Psych Intro class...So figuring out at least I should put it to my bookself keke. I like this book though, well organized, easy to understand, covering a wide range of topics in psychology field. This class eventually builds my interest in psychology.
I had to read this for class, which is the only reason it's on my list of read books. However, it did a nice job of giving an overview of Social Psychology and was easily digestible.
For psych textbook this was clear, humourous and attention keeping. It's definitely one of the better textbooks I've had for a psych course, but then again social behaviour is infinitely more interesting than some very medical type textbooks. The biggest problem with it, is that it's riddled with pop culture references that will be old in no time so it'll need a lot of upgrading.
This was a fun read. The language of the book was very easy to grab, and the writing did kept me interested enough to want to keep reading. The material was light and very easy to understand with the short modules. I learned a lot of social psychological data that I had not previously thought about, so for me this book was very informal.
I read this as part of a Coursera course on Social Psychology because I run into terms in Organizational Development and Coaching that use social psychology terminology. Good approachable text. Version I read on-line was actually newer, but I own the 2000 edition, and find it is very similar with a few updates for 9/11 and the like.
Although I wasn't too sure how I felt about social psychology at first, by the end of the book, I could truly appreciate and understand all of the minor aspects that went into the field of social psychology.
This textbook and social psychology course helped me review psychological studies with a deeper understanding. The module format, rather than longer chapters, helped to keep the information fresh in my mind when writing papers for the class. I believe it helped my recall of the information.
I wish I had had more textbooks like this in undergrad. A bit on the basic side for grad classes though. I'd give it to my future students in a heart beat!
From a non-academic standpoint, it was hard to scrim through for interesting and useful facts from the clutter even though some were easy to find. Overall, learnt some new things and confused than ever before on others.
Normally I wouldn't add a textbook to my reading list but this was excellent. A helpful introduction to social psychology with a grasp of current cultural trends and witty underpinnings.