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Psychology
The images in this textbook are in grayscale. There is a color version available - search for ISBN 9781680922370. Psychology is designed to meet scope and sequence requirements for the single-semester introduction to psychology course. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of core concepts, grounded in both classic studies and current and emerging research. The text also includes coverage of the DSM-5 in examinations of psychological disorders. Psychology incorporates discussions that reflect the diversity within the discipline, as well as the diversity of cultures and communities across the globe.
754 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
February 15, 2020
Free textbook. Worth your money, but what about your time?
2,5 stars. Not great. Not terrible. A bit under the quality of Wikipedia articles. It's basic info you can find online. Unfortunately, it lacks an evolutionary psychology framework in such a degree that it becomes a weird psychology book whose aim is moral rather than scientific.
Text
It's nice that it's a free book for sure. It does make me want to read it a bit more as paid for books are harder to recommend. If they go out of print that are gone. And even in print they are not really affordable for most people. Or they may not be updated so the old version that used to be amazing is not relevant anymore. Here in a free version we have a book that is free to download for all time and it will surely get updated.
It's not a bad intro to psychology as such. But then maybe it's not a great intro either. It's very simple. As someone who knows a ton about psychology already, I was looking for a bit deeper thinking too. This is very direct stuff that high school students will understand. It's a basic intro to basic psychology that kinda skips most of the actual psychology and instead is a book you can look up theories in. Hell, there is no clear way to pick the right theory either.
For example, the emotions chapter was something I was looking forward to. It's a field I'm very interested in. I have even collected a list of the various emotion categorization models. In this chapter, they didn't introduce a single of these models. Not even the most popular ones. They also didn't explain how emotions work and what problems they solve in our natural environment. We didn't quite get a good intro to emotions. There was just a very short definition text and then we get to read about hunger, sex and other simple stuff. What will people actually learn about emotions from this book? Not much at all. Of course, there is not too much space for in-depth learning in textbooks, but I can clearly see that they spent, in my opinion, a lot of pages on Freud and other old-school theories. If you spend even 5 pages on Freud you ought to at least explain how emotions work with a few models too.
My biggest problem is just the lack of understanding WHY humans are this way. It presents historical theories without explaining how human beings evolved to get these instincts. What's the point of presenting 4 historical theories about emotions if you are not ready to explain why we have emotions, how they work according to studies, or what old theories have been disproven? I'm not sure a layman will read these 4 theories and then finally understand Homo sapiens. Rather he will read these 4 theories and wonder why all 4 were presented in an equal light. He won't make heads or tails of it. I couldn't, and I'm someone who knows a lot about this stuff. The problem here is that very small studies are used to present some great argument about a topic. That's not really how psychology works. We never just have 1 study showing us that certain results are true. We have a ton of studies, for example, showing us that humans have a natural fear of snakes. Then in other areas we will have 50% of studies supporting a theory and 50% of studies not finding any effect. At the end will reach some semi-specific conclusions about things.
The lack of evolutionary theory thinking makes it a bunch of studies without basic info like the number of test subjects. It's all there to support some group the author feels need some scientific support, but it's info picked from millions of studies.
Bad logic
Also, this bad wage logic beneath, by itself, made me tip it down a star in the rating. The book was already testing my patience, but this is directly misleading. It's so vague and inconcrete that I feel like it's in the pseudoscience territory. Notice how the argument is too vague to really understand, but it's very easy to misunderstand the findings:
"When these factors were corrected the study found an unexplained seven-cents-on-the-dollar gap in the first year after college that can be attributed to gender discrimination in pay."
No, the lack of explanation does not tell us anything about an explanation. The word "can" here implies that it does - that's misleading. The lack of any finding of a discrimination effect does not just magically make the unexplained remaining 7% explain your pet theory. The whole idea behind not knowing something is just not knowing it or estimating it based on the other results. The whole remaining gender wage gap part is some terrible logic about how these 7% do support the author's political point of view while in reality, the remaining percentage that was explained is wrong. As I said, you can always find a study to support any conclusion.
It's a small part, but this illustrates the logical style in the book. It's not proper. It's not fitting. And even in day-to-day discussions, I don't make these rudimentary mistakes about any psychology topic. How come I can speak more critically than this author can write? That shouldn't be the case no matter my expertise on the area.
The author shouldn't assume something is true and then find a study to support her claims. It should be the other way around! That's the whole issue in this book. It feels like someone outside the field just collected a bunch of papers. And it's probably exactly what happened. It feels like someone read a textbook from the 80's and then just tried to replicate the basic theories without really understanding why this stuff works as it does as there was a greater ignorance back then.
Design
Actually, this part is essential and I should have pointed this out at the start of my review. The book looks a bit amateurish. It's not that appealing to read. It's not really chapters I'll read for enjoyment. The text itself is simple to get into, but the product feels raw. Many photos are very small for some weird reason. There are pages that just end half-way through and then continue on the next page - lots of white space. And the photos and models are old or just drab. Usually, a textbook tries to sell a product. Here it all looks like the sort of stuff I write in my free time. The whole design is pretty much like a textbook would look in the 80's.
Conclusion
As a book it's just not an appealing package. I think that people completely new to psychology with no money can learn something from the book. They will love that this knowledge is free. But honestly, it's worth buying a great textbook over this if you value your time. You may not. As a poor student you may have the time, but not the money. The text is a bit Wikipedia article level, but just with less info. It's not hard to recommend over politically biased textbooks that are worth nothing. But compared to a good textbook like "Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature" it's just not at the level it needs to be at to put psychology as a science in a good light. There is no great in-depth understanding of subjects here. It's all presented in a politically correct and easily digestible package. No punches, no great philosophy, no understanding of what psychology actually is. Just a lot of theories being presented in a way that feels like a first draft with too many words used. All made to look morally proper.
And at the end it presents a ton of old theories, biased thinking and moral lectures that could be avoided. On the other hand it lacks some current psychology science and more focus on what studies actually show or don't show and how clear the evidence is for something. A single study just does not prove any great concept. It can't. So why is that the assumption on every single page of this book?
I'm not trying to diss a free book. It's great that it's free. I just think that they could easily have gotten a better and more logical writer for this. There are many people who write psychology blogs for free and would love to take on such a project just to help out. Wikipedia is not great either, but it's just a tad better than this in quality. And even looking past that the jumps from theory to theory and the mediocre design is not appealing either.
2,5 stars. Not great. Not terrible. A bit under the quality of Wikipedia articles. It's basic info you can find online. Unfortunately, it lacks an evolutionary psychology framework in such a degree that it becomes a weird psychology book whose aim is moral rather than scientific.
Text
It's nice that it's a free book for sure. It does make me want to read it a bit more as paid for books are harder to recommend. If they go out of print that are gone. And even in print they are not really affordable for most people. Or they may not be updated so the old version that used to be amazing is not relevant anymore. Here in a free version we have a book that is free to download for all time and it will surely get updated.
It's not a bad intro to psychology as such. But then maybe it's not a great intro either. It's very simple. As someone who knows a ton about psychology already, I was looking for a bit deeper thinking too. This is very direct stuff that high school students will understand. It's a basic intro to basic psychology that kinda skips most of the actual psychology and instead is a book you can look up theories in. Hell, there is no clear way to pick the right theory either.
For example, the emotions chapter was something I was looking forward to. It's a field I'm very interested in. I have even collected a list of the various emotion categorization models. In this chapter, they didn't introduce a single of these models. Not even the most popular ones. They also didn't explain how emotions work and what problems they solve in our natural environment. We didn't quite get a good intro to emotions. There was just a very short definition text and then we get to read about hunger, sex and other simple stuff. What will people actually learn about emotions from this book? Not much at all. Of course, there is not too much space for in-depth learning in textbooks, but I can clearly see that they spent, in my opinion, a lot of pages on Freud and other old-school theories. If you spend even 5 pages on Freud you ought to at least explain how emotions work with a few models too.
My biggest problem is just the lack of understanding WHY humans are this way. It presents historical theories without explaining how human beings evolved to get these instincts. What's the point of presenting 4 historical theories about emotions if you are not ready to explain why we have emotions, how they work according to studies, or what old theories have been disproven? I'm not sure a layman will read these 4 theories and then finally understand Homo sapiens. Rather he will read these 4 theories and wonder why all 4 were presented in an equal light. He won't make heads or tails of it. I couldn't, and I'm someone who knows a lot about this stuff. The problem here is that very small studies are used to present some great argument about a topic. That's not really how psychology works. We never just have 1 study showing us that certain results are true. We have a ton of studies, for example, showing us that humans have a natural fear of snakes. Then in other areas we will have 50% of studies supporting a theory and 50% of studies not finding any effect. At the end will reach some semi-specific conclusions about things.
The lack of evolutionary theory thinking makes it a bunch of studies without basic info like the number of test subjects. It's all there to support some group the author feels need some scientific support, but it's info picked from millions of studies.
Bad logic
Also, this bad wage logic beneath, by itself, made me tip it down a star in the rating. The book was already testing my patience, but this is directly misleading. It's so vague and inconcrete that I feel like it's in the pseudoscience territory. Notice how the argument is too vague to really understand, but it's very easy to misunderstand the findings:
"When these factors were corrected the study found an unexplained seven-cents-on-the-dollar gap in the first year after college that can be attributed to gender discrimination in pay."
No, the lack of explanation does not tell us anything about an explanation. The word "can" here implies that it does - that's misleading. The lack of any finding of a discrimination effect does not just magically make the unexplained remaining 7% explain your pet theory. The whole idea behind not knowing something is just not knowing it or estimating it based on the other results. The whole remaining gender wage gap part is some terrible logic about how these 7% do support the author's political point of view while in reality, the remaining percentage that was explained is wrong. As I said, you can always find a study to support any conclusion.
It's a small part, but this illustrates the logical style in the book. It's not proper. It's not fitting. And even in day-to-day discussions, I don't make these rudimentary mistakes about any psychology topic. How come I can speak more critically than this author can write? That shouldn't be the case no matter my expertise on the area.
The author shouldn't assume something is true and then find a study to support her claims. It should be the other way around! That's the whole issue in this book. It feels like someone outside the field just collected a bunch of papers. And it's probably exactly what happened. It feels like someone read a textbook from the 80's and then just tried to replicate the basic theories without really understanding why this stuff works as it does as there was a greater ignorance back then.
Design
Actually, this part is essential and I should have pointed this out at the start of my review. The book looks a bit amateurish. It's not that appealing to read. It's not really chapters I'll read for enjoyment. The text itself is simple to get into, but the product feels raw. Many photos are very small for some weird reason. There are pages that just end half-way through and then continue on the next page - lots of white space. And the photos and models are old or just drab. Usually, a textbook tries to sell a product. Here it all looks like the sort of stuff I write in my free time. The whole design is pretty much like a textbook would look in the 80's.
Conclusion
As a book it's just not an appealing package. I think that people completely new to psychology with no money can learn something from the book. They will love that this knowledge is free. But honestly, it's worth buying a great textbook over this if you value your time. You may not. As a poor student you may have the time, but not the money. The text is a bit Wikipedia article level, but just with less info. It's not hard to recommend over politically biased textbooks that are worth nothing. But compared to a good textbook like "Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature" it's just not at the level it needs to be at to put psychology as a science in a good light. There is no great in-depth understanding of subjects here. It's all presented in a politically correct and easily digestible package. No punches, no great philosophy, no understanding of what psychology actually is. Just a lot of theories being presented in a way that feels like a first draft with too many words used. All made to look morally proper.
And at the end it presents a ton of old theories, biased thinking and moral lectures that could be avoided. On the other hand it lacks some current psychology science and more focus on what studies actually show or don't show and how clear the evidence is for something. A single study just does not prove any great concept. It can't. So why is that the assumption on every single page of this book?
I'm not trying to diss a free book. It's great that it's free. I just think that they could easily have gotten a better and more logical writer for this. There are many people who write psychology blogs for free and would love to take on such a project just to help out. Wikipedia is not great either, but it's just a tad better than this in quality. And even looking past that the jumps from theory to theory and the mediocre design is not appealing either.
December 3, 2020
Well, I read enough to be able to "professionally" diagnose myself with social anxiety disorder... 🙄😂😬💩
So there's that.
Aced the class. 🤘🏻
So there's that.
Aced the class. 🤘🏻
December 21, 2020
Read this for school, so it totally counts.
April 16, 2019
I read this to obtain a general background in psychology for purposes of some related reading. It was a good, serviceable introduction for that purpose.
October 15, 2020
Pros:
Despite being an academic textbook, the book possesses many qualities that make it accessible to anyone without a background in psychology. The book is well-written and easy to read, and it contains tons of anecdotes and real-life examples, rendering it engaging and enjoyable as well. Bonus point, it is an open/free textbook, so no need to break the bank :)
Cons:
The author(s) seem to have included their own biases in parts to derive some conclusions, but it was not that frequent.
Despite being an academic textbook, the book possesses many qualities that make it accessible to anyone without a background in psychology. The book is well-written and easy to read, and it contains tons of anecdotes and real-life examples, rendering it engaging and enjoyable as well. Bonus point, it is an open/free textbook, so no need to break the bank :)
Cons:
The author(s) seem to have included their own biases in parts to derive some conclusions, but it was not that frequent.
April 26, 2022
Alas, a semester ends and yet another textbook comes to a close. And.. I mean, it was a good semester. Although this is a college/AP course textbook, it felt extremely dumbed down and skimmed over in some parts. Great for me, made me feel smart, but academically, mmmmmmm. I enjoyed the writing of the scenarios and the formatting. And it was free! So what else can I say. Let's go psychology majors <3
Read
November 20, 2019This textbook was used in my Principles of Psychology class. This book was informative and comprehensible. I loved the examples in the book as they gave me significantly more understanding of the topics.
(This might be seen as cheating on my amount read this year. However, it took forever to read so I added it. Yes, I seek validation.)
(This might be seen as cheating on my amount read this year. However, it took forever to read so I added it. Yes, I seek validation.)
February 16, 2018
Best book frim the rice university . The best way to understand how human body has other kind of science deal with. Best meaning of book is more than under psychology . Really and a new way to see the world 🌎after read carefully this book .
October 10, 2019
This was an easy and palatable read!
This was the first psychology book I’ve read and I’ve enjoyed reading it. It was informative but not in a tedious and boring way! I especially liked the extras, links to videos or articles for additional information.
This was the first psychology book I’ve read and I’ve enjoyed reading it. It was informative but not in a tedious and boring way! I especially liked the extras, links to videos or articles for additional information.
September 1, 2020
A good, concise introduction to psychology for beginners in the field. Some things could be better elaborated, but it is a free textbook, so I'm not complaining. It also keeps things interesting, and never gets too dry.
September 18, 2019
The book was totally fabulous.
Read
December 8, 2019Might as well get credit for books I read for class!
April 8, 2020
I learned a lot, but I'm glad that I'm done. What can I say? It's a textbook. The best chapter was 15, Psychological Disorders.
December 6, 2020
Had to read for my psychology class, really informative and straight to the point :)) enjoyed how terms and theories had real life examples that brought terms to a applicable stance
September 5, 2021
Free textbook is good textbook
September 28, 2021
Great book for anyone who wants to know the principles of psychology.
10 ⭐️
10 ⭐️
Read
February 7, 20224 Stars
The parts about stress, Freudian Psychology, & Neo-Freudians are best. Excellent general information. Atheist bless Dorothy Dix...
The parts about stress, Freudian Psychology, & Neo-Freudians are best. Excellent general information. Atheist bless Dorothy Dix...
December 4, 2022
I enjoyed reading this textbook for my general psychology class. It has plenty of information displayed in an interesting way. There are definitions and a practice quiz at the end of each chapter.
December 20, 2022
OpenStax Textbook for Intro Level College Psych Course
April 23, 2025
textbook, for class
September 27, 2023
Irritated
Thé constant requests and requirements for review in order that you may use them for advertising purposes is not only irritating but abusive as well. Kindly knock it off.
Thé constant requests and requirements for review in order that you may use them for advertising purposes is not only irritating but abusive as well. Kindly knock it off.
March 11, 2021
3 starts because it does give you an overview of psychology but it is not the fist textbook you should grab if you are serious about psychology.
There are better written and more engaging alternatives if you don’t mind paying for it. If you don’t have money this is a good alternative since it is free. But keep in mind, like other reviews said, it is rather basic info and you can probably get more out of reading Wikipedia articles.
It’s not really worth your time if you have alternatives. But if you do decide to grab this textbook, it can give you an idea of psychology and it’s areas.
There are better written and more engaging alternatives if you don’t mind paying for it. If you don’t have money this is a good alternative since it is free. But keep in mind, like other reviews said, it is rather basic info and you can probably get more out of reading Wikipedia articles.
It’s not really worth your time if you have alternatives. But if you do decide to grab this textbook, it can give you an idea of psychology and it’s areas.
January 28, 2020
I finished this book a while ago and have not been able to get onto Goodreads because school is just very complicated as they took the book back. I loved this class. Mostly because the teacher made the class understandable and fun. I would love to and probably will take another of her classes soon. The book itself is laid out in a manner that is easy to follow and is a great means to follow if you are trying to do the class by yourself or online just be careful that you do not get ahead of yourself or go to slow. It can be very complicated.
December 8, 2019
I had to take a Psychology class for one of my electives, and I didn't really enjoy it a whole bunch. Some of the topics were interesting, but others were boring. Safe to say I won't be majoring there. 3/5 stars.
May 9, 2017
I had to read this book for my
Prin of Psychology class enjoyed reading this book yeah.
Prin of Psychology class enjoyed reading this book yeah.
July 19, 2019
Required for Intro to Psychology class.
July 3, 2020
Really excellent textbook.
Read
November 16, 2021I guess this counts? Stupid PSY 101
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews