Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour

by Richard Gross

500,000 students later Gross continues to set the standard for Psychology textbooks. This thoroughly updated edition is colorful, engaging, and packed with features that help students to understand and evaluate classic and contemporary Psychology. Gross is the 'bible' for students of Psychology and anyone in related fields such as Counseling, Nursing and Social Work who needs a reliable, catch-all text.
All the major domains of Psychology are covered in detail across 50 manageable chapters that will help you get to grips with anything from the nervous system to memory, from attachment to personality, and everything in-between. A final section on issues and debates allows students to cast a critical eye on the research process, to explore the nature of Psychology as an evolving science, and understand some of the ethical issues faced by Psychologists.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Reference, Science, Education, Textbooks, Health Care

901 pages, Paperback

First published May 29, 2015

Reviews

[Orlando Gerente]

nice

[Sarah Lameche · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are confused as to which psychology book to get then look no further! This book is like the Psychology Bible! It has nearly everything in it. It has snippets of info on so many subjects within Psychology. Of course if you are studying just one specific part (sociology) then buy a more in depth Social Psychology book. I know someone said it has little definitions in the book but I would say that if you cannot do little enough research as to find a definition hen perhaps psychology is not the right course for you :-)
Seriously out of all the books I purchased this one has been dragged out for nearly every assignment that I have done! BUY IT!!!

[An Te · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introductory textbook to the field of psychology. A nice and easy to read format with plenty of good links and resources embedded within the various sub-sections. There are clear diagrams that constructively add to the psychological experiments and their import.

[Danijela Jerković · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Thoughts and Notes on Psychology: The Science of Mind And Behaviour...


“The mind is its own place and, in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven."
~ John Milton


Contents...

PART 1: THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF PSYCHOLOGY
PART 2: THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF BEHAVIOUR AND EXPERIENCE
PART 3: COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
PART 4: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
PART 5: DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
PART 6: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
PART 7: ISSUES AND DEBATES


Research doesn’t appear out of nowhere and what particular Psychologists investigate isn’t a random event.

So, every time you read about a particular study, psychological concept or construct, or full-blown
theory, remember that behind it are one or more human beings, each with their ‘story’ of how they
came to be researching that topic rather than some other area of Psychology.


Psychology is the ‘study of the mind’.


We all consider we know something about people and why they behave as they do, and so there’s a sense in which we’re all Psychologists.

Psychology is a diverse discipline.
Psychologists investigate a huge range of behaviors and mental
or cognitive processes. There is a growing number of applied areas, in which theory and research findings are brought to bear in trying to improve people’s lives in a variety of ways.

Rather than having to choose between our common-sense understanding of people and the ‘scientific’ version, Psychology as a scientific discipline can be seen as complementing and illuminating our ‘everyday’ psychological knowledge.


Psychology is commonly defined as the scientific study of behavior and cognitive processes (or mind or experience).

Perception is the ‘added value’ that the organized brain gives to raw sensory data; it goes way beyond the ‘palette of sensations’ and involves memory, past experience, and higher-level processing.
~ Durie (2005)


Sleep has been shown to facilitate problem-solving, learning, and memory.

… studying our own dreams can be valuable in all sorts of ways. They can reveal our inner
motivations and hopes, help us face our fears, encourage growing awareness, and
even be a source of creativity and insight …
(Blackmore, 2003)


Motivation...

The study of motivation is the study of the causes of behavior.

Motivated behavior is goal-directed, purposeful behavior. It’s difficult to think of any behavior,
human or non-human, that isn’t motivated in this sense.

Motivation refers, in a general sense, to processes involved in the initiation, direction, and energization of individual behavior…
(Geen, 1995)

The study of motivation is the study of all those pushes and prods – biological, social, and psychological – that defeat our laziness and move us, either eagerly or reluctantly, to action.



Emotion...

Emotions set the tone of our experience and give life its vitality. They are internal factors that can
energize, direct and sustain behavior.
(Rubin and McNeill, 1983).

According to social constructionism (SC), emotions are culturally and historically relative. They exist within a system of beliefs and values, which differs between cultures and changes over time.

For each distinct emotion, there are the subjective experience, physiological changes, and associated
behavior and cognitive appraisal of the emotion-producing stimulus/situation.


Attention...

The doctrine of attention is the nerve of the whole psychological system.

It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalisation and concentration of consciousness are of their essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.
~William James (1890)


‘Attention’ is really an umbrella term for a number of processes and abilities. These include the ability to focus attention on a single aspect of the environment or activity (voluntary attentional vigilance) at one extreme, and automatic, uncontrollable responses to unusual or unexpected events (involuntary attentional capture) at the other. Both may have evolved to aid the survival of the human species


Perception...

Perception is the organization and interpretation of incoming sensory information to form inner
representations of the external world.

To perceive seems effortless. Understanding perception is nevertheless a significant challenge.
~ Dodwell (1995)

Sensation involves physical stimulation of the sense organs, while perception is the organization and interpretation of incoming sensory information.


Memory and Forgetting...

Learning and memory represent two sides of the same coin: learning
depends on memory for its ‘permanence’, and memory would have no ‘content’ without learning. Hence, we could define memory as the retention of learning and experience.

In the broadest sense, learning is the acquisition of knowledge and memory is the storage of an internal representation of that knowledge …
~Blakemore (1988)

… Without the capacity to remember and to learn, it is difficult to imagine what life would be like, whether it could be called living at all. Without memory, we would be servants of the moment, with nothing but our innate reflexes to help us deal with the world. There could be no language, no art, no science, no culture. Civilization itself is the distillation of human memory …
~Blakemore (1988)

… Memory defines who we are and shapes the way we act more closely than any other single aspect of our personhood.
~Rose (2003)

… Lose your memory and you, as you, cease to exist …
~Rose, 2003

A bit of healthy editing and shading is far better in helping us understand who we are, where we have come from, and where we might be heading in the future. The primary role of autobiographical memory is to help us understand our place in the world, past, present, and future. ~Morrison, 2013


Memory can be defined as the retention of learning or experience. Learning and memory are
interdependent processes.


Language and Thought...

Language ... is a tool that allows us to augment our powers of thought. By putting thoughts into
the language we are able to take a step back and subject them to critical evaluation ...
~ Bayne, 2013


Entry into language is entry into the discourse that requires both members of a dialogue pair
to interpret communication and its intent. Learning a language … consists of learning not
only the grammar of a particular language but also learning how to realize one’s intentions by
the appropriate use of that grammar.
~Bruner (1983)

Language involves the acquisition of a rule system (grammar/mental grammar), which consists of
phonology, semantics, and syntax.


Problem-Solving, Decision-Making, Artificial Intelligence...

The basic cognitive processes are all aspects of ‘thought’.
However, there’s more to thinking than perception, attention, and language.
Two closely related aspects of the thinking of interest to Cognitive Psychologists are problem-solving (PS) and decision-making (DM).

… all thinking involves problem-solving, no matter how simple, immediate and effortless it
may appear …
~ Boden, 1987


Social Perception...

Social (or person) perception refers to the perception of people.

Ordinary people come to know about each others’ temporary states (such as emotions,
intentions, and desires) and enduring dispositions (such as beliefs, traits, and abilities)
from their actions …
~Gilbert, 1998

According to Fiske (2004), when we form impressions of other people it seems to happen immediately (‘automatically’). But in fact we:
… search the social horizon unaware that [we] are using mental binoculars and that things
are much farther away than they appear. All our experience … is actually mediated or filtered through a psychological lens, our perceiving apparatus. Although we experience the world as if we take in a literal, unfiltered copy, each person passes reality through a different lens…

We are all psychologists.
In attempting to understand other people and ourselves, we
are informal scientists who construct our own intuitive theories of human behavior. In doing
so, we face the same basic tasks as the formal scientist …
~ Nisbett and Ross (1980)


… Stereotypes are both (a) basic human tendencies inherent within our mental architecture, and (b)
potentially damaging belief systems, depending on the power of the situation …
~ Operario and Fiske (2004)

Influencing How Others See Us:
- Impression Management
- Self-monitoring
- Self-disclosure


Two essential truths about human beings:
1. Science (including Psychology) is conducted by people and, as far as we know, is uniquely human.
2. Observing, explaining, predicting, and trying to control others’ behavior are activities shared
by professional Psychologists and all other human beings.


Interpersonal perception refers to how we all attempt to explain, predict and, to some
degree, control the behavior of other people. In these ways, we can all be thought of as psychologists.



Attribution theory deals with the general principles governing how we select and use the information to arrive at causal explanations for behavior. Theories of attribution draw on the principles of attribution theory and predict how people will respond in particular situations
(or life domains: Fiske and Taylor, 1991).


Most of our impressions of others are based on their overt behavior and the setting in which
it occurs.
How we judge the causes of someone’s behavior (the ‘actor’) will have a major influence on
the impression we form of them. Was their behavior something to do with them ‘as a person’, such as their motives, intentions, or personality (an internal cause)? Or was it something to do with the situation, including some other person or some physical feature of the environment (an external cause)?


Attitudes and Attitudes Change...

An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related.
~Allport, 1935

An attitude is an evaluative disposition toward some object. It’s an evaluation of something or someone along a continuum of like-to-dislike or favorable-to-unfavorable…
~Zimbardo and Leippe, 1991

According to Rosenberg and Hovland (1960), attitudes are ‘predispositions to respond to some class of stimuli with certain classes of response’.
These classes of response are:
● Affective: what a person feels about the attitude object, how favorably or unfavorably it’s
evaluated
● Cognitive: what a person believes the attitude object is like, objectively
● Behavioural (sometimes called the ‘conative’): how the person actually responds or intends to
respond, to the attitude object.

… Attitudes are basic and pervasive in human life … Without the concept of attitude, we would
have difficulty construing and reacting to events, trying to make decisions, and making sense of our
relationships with people in everyday life …
~ Hogg and Vaughan (1995)


Social Influence and Behavior Change...
1: Persuasive Communication
2: Propaganda and war
3: Advertising

Attitudes have much in common with beliefs and values.

Impression management theory stresses the social rather than the cognitive motivation underlying
attitude change.


Conformity and Group Influence...

It’s impossible to live among other people and not be influenced by them in some way.
According to Allport (1968), Social Psychology as a discipline can be defined as:

… An attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.

According to Turner (1991):
The key idea in understanding what researchers mean by social influence is the concept of a social norm. Influence relates to the processes whereby people agree or disagree about appropriate behavior, form, maintain or change social norms, and the social conditions that give rise to, and the effects of, such norms …

A social norm...
… A rule, value, or standard shared by the members of a social group that prescribes appropriate, expected, or desirable attitudes and conduct in matters relevant to the group …


The frustration-aggression hypothesis (FAH)...
… aggression is always a consequence of frustration and, contrariwise … the existence of frustration
always leads to some form of aggression …
~Dollard et al.’s (1939)


… Individual or group frustrations coupled with the highly emotional atmosphere of a match may
occasionally tip the balance towards real aggression. In the mix, there may also be individuals who are simply aggressive, and who find the ferment of a match an ideal context in which to indulge in overt aggression …
~Hogg and Abrams, 2000


Early Experience and Social Development...

There’s no question that relationship formation remains a lifelong issue, and that:

... relationships provide the context in which all of a child’s psychological functions develop ...
What is also certain is that differences among children in the nature of their relationships with others can have profound implications for the particular developmental path that each child embarks upon ...
~Schaffer, 2004


Development of Self-Concept...

The formation of the self is never complete.
~ Schaffer, 2004

An important distinction is that between consciousness and self-consciousness/awareness.
Self-awareness allows us to see ourselves as others see us.

Our self-concept refers to our perception of our personality and comprises the self-image (which
includes body image/bodily self), self-esteem, and ideal self. It can also be defined in terms of a
complex set of self-schemata, which themselves include an array of possible selves.


Cognitive Development...

Cognitive development occurs through the interaction between innate capacities and environmental events. It progresses through a series of hierarchical, invariant and universal stages: the sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational.


Moral Development...

At birth, we’re amoral, lacking any system of personal values and judgments about right and wrong. By adulthood, though, most of us possess morality.


Different psychological theories attempt to answer quite different questions about moral development. To the extent that all these questions are relevant to understanding the full complexity of moral development, psychoanalytic theory, cognitive developmental theories, and social learning theory (SLT) all make a significant contribution to our understanding of this critically important aspect of socialization.


Gender Development...

While every known culture distinguishes between male and female, the evidence for the truth of sex
stereotypes is inconclusive. Although anatomical sex is universal, gender, which refers to all the duties, rights, and behaviors a culture considers appropriate for males and females, is a social invention.

It’s the gender that gives us a sense of personal identity as male or female (Wade and Tavris, 1994). An even stronger argument for the social construction of gender comes from studies of societies where there are more than two genders.


… The human brain was designed by the same natural forces that shaped other natural phenomena, but it is a brain designed to think, learn, and construct cultures. To isolate or ignore any of these
facets limits our understanding of human behavior…


Adulthood is:
... one of the best-kept secrets in our society and probably in human history generally.
~ Levinson et al. (1978)


Intelligence...

… essentially a system of living and acting operations, i.e. a state of balance or equilibrium achieved by the person when he is able to deal adequately with the data before him. But it is not a static state, it is dynamic in that it continually adapts itself to new environmental stimuli.
~ Piaget (1950)


Complementary to Gardner’s MI theory is Goleman’s concept of emotional intelligence, which he defines as:

... abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope ...
~Goleman, 1995


Personality...

However different they may be in other respects, most personality theories share the basic assumption that personality is something that ‘belongs’ to the individual: ‘the appropriate unit of analysis for personality psychology is the person.'
~Hampson, 1995.

According to the constructionist approach (Hampson, 1995), personality is constructed, in the course of social interaction, from three elements:
1: a person’s self-presentation (the actor),
2: the perception of this presentation by an audience (the observer: see), and
3: self-awareness (the self-observer: see ).
To this extent, personality isn’t merely an abstraction that helps to explain people’s behavior
(it’s not something people ‘have’), but it’s to do with how we relate to other people and deal with the world in general.

Three kinds of individual traits...

Cardinal traits are so all-pervading that they dictate and direct almost all of an individual’s
behavior, such as someone who’s consumed by greed, ambition, or lust. However, such traits
are quite rare, and most people don’t have one predominant trait.

Central traits are the basic building blocks that make up the core of personality and which
constitute the individual’s characteristic ways of dealing with the world (e.g. honest, loving,
happy-go-lucky). A surprisingly small number of these is usually sufficient to capture the essence
of a person.

Secondary traits are less consistent and influential than central traits and refer to tastes, preferences, political persuasions, reactions to particular situations, and so on.

The existence and nature of individual traits make it very difficult to compare people:

Any given individual] is a unique creation of the forces of nature. There was never a person
just like him and there never will be again …
~Allport, 1961.

The self...
The self is an ‘organised, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself’. It includes a person’s awareness of ‘what they are and what they can do’, influencing both their perception of the world and their behavior. We evaluate every experience in terms of self, and most human behavior can be understood as an attempt to maintain consistency between our self-image and our actions.



Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just too heavy to hold!

[Laila Regalado · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my Go-To book throughout my university studies.
The language is clear, which makes it a delight to read (some other psychology books are more on the stiff side, which is fine, too, but this book would even make it as an evening lecture, if so wanted).

The summaries, key points and examples are incredibly helpful.

It will accompany me for a very long time, that's for sure.

[Esther Jakobsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Course Literature: Kristianstad University: Psychology 1a, (Pyschology The Science of Mind and Behaviour, 5th)


Thonga of Africa do not kiss (...) Chuukese women of Micronesia poke a finger into their partners ears (...) South American Apinayé women bite off and spit out hairs from their partner's eyebrow p.578


We often fail to appreciate how arbitrarily we interpret 'the way things are'. p.592


To the humanist every man is a scientist by disposition as well as by right, every subject is an incipient experimenter, and every person is by daily necessity a fellow psychologist. p.627 (Kelly, 1969)


Children develop higher self-esteem when their parents communicate unconditional acceptance and love, establish clear guidelines for behaviour, and reinforce compliance, while giving the child freedom to make decisions and express opinions within those guidelines (Brown, 1998; Coopersmith, 1967) p.630


'we are what we remember' p.677


the courage to change those things that can be changed, the forbearance to accept those that cannot be changed, and the wisdom to discern the difference. p. 744 (Reinhold Niebuhr)


it is important to note that most people (45 per cent of men and 66 per cent of women) actually abstain from drinking alcohol worldwide. p.765


delusions: false beliefs that are sustained in the face of evidence that normally would be sufficient to destroy them p.805 :)


Irrational belief: It is a dire necessity that I be loved and approved of by virtually everyone for everything I do. 
Rational alternative: Although we might prefer approval to disapproval, our self-worth need not depend on the love and approval of others. Self-respect is more important than giving up one's individuality to buy the approval of others. p.836


'people are disturbed not by things, but the views they take of them' p.838 (Epictetus)

[Tiago F · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm very pleased with the book. It's quite long, but it never felt tedious. As a very large field, it's impossible to have a textbook that dives too deep into anything, but this made a good job of having a sufficient overview.

While there is a vast amount of topics covered, they can be broadly categorized in the history and development of psychology, the biological origins of behavior, cognitive psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology and individual differences. I liked that the book wasn't afraid to dive into more traditional psychoanalysis, and sometimes even temporarily crossing over to philosophy. It's a fading trend in psychology, but quite unfortunate as it contains tremendous wisdom.

The only critique I have of the book is that I wish it highlighted more research, instead of simply stating the status quo. This would drive the point home much better and make readers more familiar with how the field progresses and how conclusions are supported by data. I also loved that there was "Meet the research" portions, where renowned researchers were given a couple pages to describe their area of work. It was always a delight to read, but they were far in between. I wish they had it in every chapter, it would add a tremendous amount of value.

Despite that, it's a fantastic book for anyone with a serious interest in psychology, I strongly recommend it.

[Michael Eggleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent reading. I thoroughly enjoyed studying it. I want to study Positive Psychology alot more, but really wanted to find & study a book on Psychology that would be a nice, comprehensive overview first in order to set the basis, the background, the foundation first that i could build on later on in further studies in Positive Psychology. I achieved what i wanted with this book.


I learnt quite alot of things that i will carry forward with me, which was the aim of studying this 1100 page monster of a book to begin with. 👍🤓

[lorna wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is not made for 8 year olds but it made me think of a really good true theory.

[Kaci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really useful for anyone studying psychology - was much used during my college terms

[kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

i ain’t reading allat, nah fr tho recommend for psych students who need a juicy book to reference icl

[Victoire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book, Interesting subject if only because you get to understand why your lecturer is the way she is.
Great classes (mostly female)... and field trips (except the one where we went to see the 'best man at Oxford's speech)shameless self promotion there ... which should say something!

At best, at the end, you are left with the feeling of 'well, they're just guessing and backing it up with shaky stats aren't they' - curiously there aren't many mentions of the self fulfilling prophecy that psychology is littered with.

Overlong intro on brain science and neurons/ganglia and so on but some good bits relevant to personal space that a lot of people could learn from though I still believe if you don't want to encounter mental illness don't read this book ;)

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Може би това е един от най-добрите учебници, които някога съм държала в ръце. Лятната ми ваканция настъпи, но аз продължавам да го чета по няколко причини. Първата разбира се нестихващия ми интерес, второ ще ми е полезно да мина уроците които не минахме тази година, трето трябва да си поддържам ума в добра форма (доколкото това е възможно) и четвърто - чете ми се, но не ми се чете худ литература, която ще ме ангажира с много емоционален 'багаж', но не ми се чете и нещо посредствено и предсказуемо, което не ме кара да мисля. Следователно сега съм зациклила над учебника си...

Слагам я в Прочетени, макар че все още я чета...

[Toni Cooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives an alternative perspective to that of my course books. It is very informative and easy to follow.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great starting text for anybody interested in learning more about psychology and a handy tool for first year undergraduate students in preparation for their degree

[Peer Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty easy to read, easy to 'dip into' for specific information

[Naziya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent boook★★

[Tracey1001 · Rating 5 out of 5]

An invaluable text for anyone studying any kind of Psychology. Definitely a must-have!

[Steve Fenton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good reference book for Psychology. Manages to avoid reading like a text book.

[Sarah Isabella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although i didnt read every part of this book it was an insightful study read, perhaps a little hard for new psychology beginners.

[Yara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for psychology students!