Social Psychology: The Science of Everyday Life

by Jeff Greenberg, Toni Schmader, Jamie Arndt

This remarkable new textbook offers a fresh approach to the study of social psychology, integrating theory, research, and applications into a coherent, contemporary portrait of the field that no other available text can match.

Drawing on over 50 years of combined teaching and research, Greenberg, Schmader, Arndt, and Landau guide students through the rich diversity of the science of social psychology and its insights into everyday life. The book introduces students to five broad perspectives on human social behavior: social cognition, cultural psychology, evolutionary theory, existential psychology, and social neuroscience. With these perspectives serving as recurring themes, each chapter organically weaves together explanations of theory, research methods, empirical findings, and applications, showing how social psychologists accumulate and apply knowledge toward understanding and solving real-world problems.

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Genres: Psychology, Textbooks, Science

720 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2014

About the author

Jeff Greenberg, Ph.D. is a professor of psychology and a College of Science Fellow at the University of Arizona. As a small child growing up in the Bronx, he was very curious about the human propensities for vanity and prejudice. Jeff majored in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, but it wasn’t until he took social psychology in his final semester that he found a field where people where asking the questions he thought should be asked. Soon after starting a master’s program in social psychology at Southern Methodist University, he knew this was what he wanted to spend his life studying and teaching. After receiving his M.A., Jeff completed his Ph.D. at University of Kansas in 1982 under the mentorship of Jack Brehm. He has since received numerous research and teaching awards. His research has contributed to understanding self-serving biases, how motivation affects cognition, the effects of ethnic slurs, the role of self-awareness in depression, cognitive dissonance, and how concerns about death contribute to prejudice, self-esteem striving, and many other aspects of social behavior. Jeff has also coauthored or coedited six prior books, including the Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology and In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror.

Reviews

[Kavita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful. Helped me to better understand myself, those in my social circles and the events occurring in the world.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book for my social psychology class. Easy to read and follow.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible text about human behavior and social psychology.