Exploring psychology

Preface

Time management: Or, how to be a great student and still have a life

CHAPTER 1. Thinking Critically With Psychological Science:

- What Is Psychology? Psychology's roots

- Contemporary Psychology:

Psychology's biggest question

Psychology's three main levels of analysis

Psychology's subfields

Need For Psychological Science:

What about intuition and common sense?

Scientific attitude: curious, skeptical, and humble

Critical thinking

How Do Psychologists Ask And Answer Questions?:

Scientific method

Description

Correlation

Experimentation

Frequently asked questions about psychology

Improve your retention-and your grades

Biology Of Behavior:

Biology and behavior

Neural Communication:

Neurons

Neural impulse

How neurons communicate

How neurotransmitters influence us

Nervous System:

Peripheral nervous system

Central nervous system

Endocrine system

Brain:

Older brain structure

Close Up: Tools of discovery-having our head examined

Cerebral cortex

Our divided brain

Right-left differences in the intact brain

Behavior Genetics: Predicting Individual Differences:

Genes: our code for life

Twins and adoption studies

Gene-environment interaction

Evolutionary Psychology: Understanding Human Nature:

Natural selection and adaptation

Evolutionary success helps explain similarities

Consciousness And The Two-Track Mind:

Brain And Consciousness:

Dual processing: the two-track mind

Selective attention

Sleep And Dreams:

Biological rhythms and sleep

Sleep theories

Sleep deprivation and sleep disorders

Dreams

Hypnosis:

Frequently asked questions about hypnosis

Explaining the hypnotized state

Drugs And Consciousness:

Tolerance, dependence, and addiction

Thinking Critically About: Addiction

Types of psychoactive drugs

Influences on drug use

Developing Through The Life Span:

Developmental psychology's major issues Prenatal Development And The New Born:

Conception

Prenatal development

Competent newborn

Infancy And Childhood:

Physical development

Cognitive development

Close Up: Autism and mind-blindness

Social development

Reflections on nature and nurture

Adolescence:

Physical development

Cognitive development

Social development

Thinking Critically About: How much credit or blame do parents deserve?

Emerging adulthood

Reflections on continuity and stages

Adulthood:

Physical development

Cognitive development

Social development

Reflections on stability land change

Gender And Sexuality:

Gender Development:

Genes: how are we alike? How do we differ?

Nature of gender: our biology

Nurture of gender: our culture

Human Sexuality:

Physiology of sex

Psychology of sex

Close Up: Sexualization of girls

Sexual orientation:

Environment and sexual orientation

Biology and sexual orientation

Evolutionary Explanation Of Human Sexuality:

Gender differences in sexuality

Natural selection and mating preferences

Critiquing the evolutionary perspective

Reflections on gender, sexuality, and nature-nurture interaction

Sensation And Perception:

Basic Principles Of Sensation And Perception:

Transduction

Thresholds

Thinking Critically About: Can subliminal messages control our behavior?

Sensory adaptation

Perceptual set

Context effects

Emotion and motivation

Vision:

Stimulus input: light energy

Eye

Visual information processing

Color vision

Visual organization

Visual interpretation

Hearing:

Stimulus input: sound waves

Ear

Other Senses:

Touch

Pain

Taste

Smell

Body position and movement

Sensory Interaction:

Thinking Critically About: ESP- Perception Without Sensations?

Learning:

How do we learn?

Classical Conditioning:

Pavlov's experiments

Pavlov's legacy

Operant Conditioning:

Skinner's experiments

Skinner's legacy

Close Up: Training our partners

Contrasting classical and operant conditioning

Biology, Cognition, And Learning:

Biological constraints on conditioning

Cognition's influence on conditioning

Learning By Observation:

Mirrors and imitation in the brain

Applications of observational learning

Thinking Critically About: Does viewing media violence trigger violent behavior?

Memory:

Studying Memory:

Memory models

Building Memories: Encoding:

Dual-track memory: effortful versus automatic processing

Automatic processing and implicit memories

Effortful processing and explicit memories

Memory Storage

Retaining information in the brain

Synaptic changes

Retrieval: Getting Information Out:

Measuring retention

Retrieval cues

Forgetting:

Forgetting and the two-track mind

Encoding failure

Storage decay

Retrieval failure

Memory Construction Errors:

Misinformation and imagination effects

Source amnesia

Discerning true and false memories

Children's eyewitness recall

Repressed or constructed memories of abuse?

Improving memory.

Thinking Language, And Intelligence:

Thinking:

Concepts

Problem solving: strategies and obstacles

Forming good and bad decisions and judgments

Thinking Critically About: Fear factor-why we fear the wrong things

Thinking creatively

Close Up: Fostering your own creativity

Do other species share our cognitive skills?

Language:

Language structure

Language development

Brain and language

Do other species have language?

Thinking And Language:

Language influences thinking

Thinking in images

Intelligence:

What is intelligence?

Assessing intelligence

Aging and intelligence

Close Up: Extremes of intelligence

Genetic and environmental influences on intelligence

Group differences in intelligence test scores

Motivation And Emotion:

Motivational Concepts:

Instincts and evolutionary psychology

Drives and incentives

Optimum arousal

Hierarchy of motives

Hunger:

Physiology of hunger

Psychology of hunger

Obesity and weight control

Close Up: Waist management

Need To Belong:

Benefits of belonging

Pain of being shut out

Connecting and social networking

Close Up: Managing your social networking

Achievement motivation

Emotion: Arousal, Behavior, And Cognition:

Historical emotion theories

Schachter-Singer Two Factor Theory: Arousal + Label = Emotion

Zajonc, LeDoux, and Lazarus: does cognition always precede emotion?

Embodied Emotion:

Basic emotions

Emotions and the autonomic nervous system

Physiology of emotions

Thinking Critically About: Lie detection

Expressed And Experienced Emotion:

Detecting emotion in others

Gender and emotion

Culture and emotion

Effects of facial expressions

Stress, Health, And Human Flourishing:

Stress And Health:

Stress: some basic concepts

Stress and illness

Close Up: Tips for handling anger

Coping With Stress:

Personal control

Optimism versus pessimism

Social support

Close Up: Pets are friends, too

Reducing Stress:

Aerobic exercise

Relaxation and meditation

Faith communities and health

Happiness:

Positive psychology

What affects our well-being?

What predicts our happiness levels?

Close Up: Want to be happier?

Personality

Psychodynamic Theories:

Freud's psychoanalytic perspective: exploring the unconscious

Neo-Freudian and psychodynamic theorists

Assessing unconscious processes

Evaluating Freud's psychoanalytic perspective and modern views of the unconscious

Humanistic Theories:

Abraham Maslow's self-actualizing person

Carl Rogers' person-centered perspective

Assessing the self

Evaluating humanistic theories

Trait Theories:

Exploring traits

Assessing traits

Thinking Critically About: How to be a successful astrologer or palm reader

Big five factors

Evaluating trait theories

Social-Cognitive Theories:

Reciprocal influences

Assessing behavior in situations

Evaluating social-cognitive theories

Exploring The Self:

Benefits of self-esteem

Self-serving bias

Culture and the self

Social Psychology

Social Thinking:

Fundamental attribution error

Attitudes and actions

Social Influence:

Cultural influences

Conformity: complying with social pressures

Obedience: following orders

Group behavior

Social Relations:

Prejudice

Close Up: Automatic prejudice

Aggression

Attraction

Close Up: Online matchmaking and speed dating

Altruism

Conflict and peacemaking

Psychological Disorders

What Is A Psychological Disorder?:

Understanding psychological disorders

Thinking Critically About: ADHD-normal high energy or genuine disorder?

Classifying disorders-and labeling people

Thinking Critically About: Insanity and responsibility

Anxiety Disorders:

Generalized anxiety disorder

Panic disorder

Phobias

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Understanding anxiety disorders

Mood Disorders:

Major depressive disorder

Bipolar disorder

Understanding mood disorders

Close Up: Suicide and self-injury

Schizophrenia:

Symptoms of schizophrenia

Onset and development of schizophrenia

Understanding schizophrenia

Other Disorders:

Dissociative disorders

Eating disorders

Personality disorders

Rates of psychological disorders

Therapy:

Treating psychological disorders

Psychological Therapies:

Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy

Humanistic therapies

Behavior therapies

Cognitive therapies

Group and family therapies

Evaluating Psychotherapies:

Is psychotherapy effective?

Which psychotherapies work best?

Evaluating alternative therapies

How do psychotherapies help people?

Culture and values in psychotherapy

Close Up: Consumer's guide to mental health professionals

Biomedical Therapies:

Drug therapies

Brain stimulation

Psychosurgery

Therapeutic lifestyle change

Preventing Psychological Disorders:

Resilience

Creating healthy environments

Appendix A: Statistical reasoning in everyday life

Appendix B: Psychology at work

Appendix C: Subfields of psychology

Appendix D: Complete chapter reviews

Appendix E: Answers to experience the testing effect questions

Glossary

References

Name index

Subject index.

Preface

Thinking critically with psychological science

Neuroscience and behavior

The nature and nurture of behavior

The developing person

Sensation and perception

States of consciousness

Learning

Memory

Thinking, language, and intelligence

Motivation

Emotions, stress, and health

Personality

Psychological disorders

Therapy

Social psychology.