books about psychology
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Psychology: A New Introduction for A Level (2nd edition),
Gross et al (Amazon)
I've been very impressed with this book, the writing is very clear and it
covers all the syllabus, so I think it's a must.
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Freud: A Very Short
Introduction, Anthony Storr (Amazon)
A very readable book, this covers a lot of Freud's ideas, and also
includes biographical information and some insight into why he came up with
his theories. The author seems to be fairly objective, pointing out strengths
and weaknesses of Freud's approach. See the VSI page for this book for
more info.
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Psychology: A Very Short Introduction, Butler + McManus
(Amazon)
Does what it says on the tin. I can recommend this as being very
readable. It seems to cover quite a few of the things that we've been looking
at in the "AS" level course. The only criticism is that it doesn't always
reference the names of the researchers - e.g. it will say "infant monkeys were
separated..." rather than "Harlow showed..". See the VSI page for this book for
more info.
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The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks (Amazon)
Essays by Sacks, mostly about people who've suffered some sort of physical
problem that's caused brain damage and consequent behavioural changes. Ties
in with the "physiological approach" to psychology.
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Obedience to Authority, Stanley Milgram (Amazon)
Milgram's own book about the series of experiments he did in the
1960s. This book is one of the reasons that I wanted to study psychology. As
well as detailing all the variations of the "obedience" experiments, there is
a lot of analysis of the results, with transcripts of the discussions between
participants and experimenter. Some of these, and some of the letters Milgram
received from the participants are very moving.
Milgram also writes about the ethical issues and answers some of his critics.
Not exactly bed-time reading, but well worth it nonetheless.
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The Individual in a Social World, Milgram (Amazon)
A collection of works by Milgram, including a section on the obedience
experiments, but also with some of his other ideas, such as the "small world"
problem which led to "six degrees of separation", and the "lost-letter"
technique. Some fascinating stuff in here but it's not always an easy read.
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The Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon (Amazon)
This is a very subjective look at depression, by someone who's suffered it
(pretty badly by the sound of things). Makes a change from some of the
textbooks because it's quite opinionated and subjective. But there is some
useful information in here, for example he describes the different types of
"talking therapy" available, and also discusses drugs, "natural" therapies,
and ECT (which he says has one of the highest cure rates of all). See full review.
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Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction, Ian Deary
See review
nick's psychology pages