Social Psychology For Dummies

by Daniel Richardson

Written for psychology students, Social Psychology For Dummies is an accessible and entertaining introduction to the field. Social Psychology For Dummies follows a typical university course, which makes it the perfect reference if you're in need of a clear (and enjoyable) overview of the topic. Whether you plan is to get ahead of the game or make up for lost time, we have you covered.

Online accessible review questions for each chapter are available to consolidate learning.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

286 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 11, 2014

Reviews

[Bellatuscana Bellatuscana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Basic experiments and explanation of topics in Social Psychology.

My only criticism is that it repeated many of the same experiments (such as the Stanford Prison Experiment) - some of which seemed more anecdotal than scientific, such as the authors assertion that social upbringing affects heterosexual or homosexuality. I found that example to be too simplistic.

I think a person wanting to read this book could google the topics without looking at them and learn just as much, if not more of what they were interested in. That being said, it is probably a good book for studying for a college test.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

For someone who has read their first book on psychology, I found it simple to understand It gives you a good understanding of psychology (social psychology) in general and I have a much better understanding of what makes a person. non fiction books can sometimes be a bit dry but this book was exciting to read, I learned enough from this book to change my view forever and have a better understanding of people and what may influence peoples action and their decisions.

[Andrea Kaplan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written easily and a kind of fun read. Wish it delved a little deeper, but a good overview.

[Ll a · Rating 5 out of 5]

خیلی خوبه.
خیلی خوبه.
خیلی خوبه.
و باز هم خیلی خوبه.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful place to start and learn where to start learning more

[Adrian Scottow · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author takes us step by step through social psychology with a light, imaginative and illuminating touch. He often brings the material to life with interesting personal anecdotes - I particularly enjoyed the story of him as an undergraduate wearing eye-liner. He is helped by having a fascinating subject to write about and looking back after having read it I feel far more grounded in social psychology than I was before. My work has a few overlaps with social psychology and my colleague had recommended I read a paper on bias - I tried but spent quite a long time trying to understand what was going on, getting a bit lost with the terminology, and the general approach. If only I had read Chapter 3 first - I would have been able to get much more out of it - and then I if I had read Chapter 18 I would have been able to criticize it!

A constant theme throughout the book is the difference between behaviour and situation - the strong argument is that it is situation that typically plays a far bigger role in explaining how and why we behave.

One of the best things that I can say about this book is that it causes you to think about the world around you and there are quite a few “aha” moments that make you reflect on times in your life where you have observed behaviors that you weren’t fully able to understand at the time. Once you are equipped with some of the basic social psychology tools you will soon pick apart those same situations and ascribe people biases or prejudices to explain their behaviour. I enjoyed this book so much that I have used a number of the studies whilst discussing current affairs with my wife and friends.

Nothing however is perfect and there are a few things that I didn’t like. The constant signposting throughout the book suggested to me that this was not really intended to be read as one continuous piece of prose - some signposts are useful but others seemed a little much - especially when they referred to the immediately preceding piece of text. This was a minor annoyance, though, rather than a major flaw and one that I suspect was forced in order to conform to the ‘Dummies' style rules.

I enjoyed the frequent side bars and found some of them very funny and interesting. In these the author delves deeper into some of the fascinating research in the area or tells a funny story or corrects a popular misunderstanding. I was surprised not to find more Freud until I read the side bar debunking such ideas. Now I understand why a few of my psychologist friends would always roll their eyes if ever I mentioned Freud.

All in all an excellent book - I sincerely hope that the author writes another one soon and helps the layman digest some of the cutting edge research that is going on in this area.

[Hlyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, interesting, entertaining (and sometimes funny, like any other For Dummies book) introduction to Social Psychology (and also applications of it to everyday life). I really enjoyed this book!