Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior, 13th Edition

Book Preface

To the Student — An Invitation to Learn Psychology Greetings from your authors! We look forward to being your guides as you explore the exciting field of psychology and our everevolving understanding of human behavior. In a very real sense, we wrote this book about you, for you, and to you. We sincerely hope you will find, as we do, that what you learn is at once familiar, exotic, surprising, and challenging.
Reading Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior In Gateways to Mind and Behavior, we have done all we could imagine to make it enjoyable for you to read this book. We trust you will find your first journey through psychology to be quite interesting and useful to you in your everyday life. Each chapter of this book will take you into a different realm of psychology, such as personality, abnormal behavior, memory, consciousness, or human development. Each realm is complex and fascinating in its own right, with many pathways, landmarks, and interesting detours to discover. Like any journey of discovery, your exploration of psychology will help you to better understand yourself, others, and the world around you. It’s definitely a trip worth taking.

Studying Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior None of us likes to start a new adventure by reading a manual. We just want to step off the airplane and begin our vacation, get right into that new computer game, or just start using our new camera or cell phone. You might be similarly tempted to just start reading this textbook. Please be patient. Successfully learning psychology depends on how you study this book, as well as how you read it. Psychology is about each of us. It asks us to adopt a reflective attitude as we inquire, “How can we step outside of ourselves to look objectively at how we live, think, feel, and act?” Psychologists believe the answer is through careful thought, observation, and inquiry. As simple as that may seem, thoughtful reflection takes practice to develop. It is the guiding light for all that follows. Gateways to Mind and Behavior, then, is your passport to an adventure in active learning, not just passive reading. To help you get off to a good start, we strongly encourage you to read our short “manual,” Introduction: The Psychology of Studying, which precedes Chapter

1. This introduction describes a variety of study skills, including the reflective SQ4R method, which you can use to get the most out of this text, your psychology course, and your other courses as well. It also explains how you can explore psychology through digital media such as the Internet, electronic databases, and interactive CD-ROMs. To the Instructor — An Invitation to Teach Psychology Thank you for choosing Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior for your students and for your course. Marcel Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes.” It is in this spirit that we have written this book to promote not just an interest in human behavior but also an appreciation for the perspective of the psychologist. As we point out to your students in Introduction: The Psychology of Studying, which precedes Chapter 1, there is a big difference between experiencing and reflecting on experience (Norman 1993). For John Dewey (1910), reflective thinking is the “active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusion to which it tends.” The psychologist’s perspective, of course, involves reflecting on human behavior in a variety of ways. When it comes to studying psychology, reflective cognition requires actively thinking about what you have just read, which results in deeper understanding and memory. (Please consider taking a look at our Introduction as it explains to your students in some detail how to become a more reflective student, as well as outlining how they can get the most out of this book. By the way, we encourage you, if at all possible, to assign your students to read it as well.) Throughout this text, we have tried to select only the very “best” material from the many topics that could be presented. Nevertheless, Gateways to Mind and Behavior covers not only the heart of psychology, but also many topics at the cutting edge of current knowledge, including a focus on the practical applications of psychology, the growing importance of neuroscience, and the richness of human diversity. New information, anecdotes, perspectives, and narratives appear throughout the 13th edition. The result is a concise text that is readable, manageable, informative, and motivating. At the same time, we have structured this book to help students consolidate the skills to learn efficiently and to become better critical thinkers. Without such skills, students cannot easily go, as Jerome Bruner (1973) put it, “beyond the information given.” The Teaching Challenge Wouldn’t it be nice if all of our students came to our courses highly motivated to explore psychology and well prepared to cope with the learning challenges we create for them? As the authors of this textbook, we have together accumulated some 60 years of classroom experience, teaching tens of thousands of college and university students. Although we have found most students to be generally well-intentioned, our modern world certainly does immerse them in their work, careers, families, intimate relationships, popular culture, and life in general. As we compete for ever more limited student attention, we must do more than just lecture in psychology. We must also motivate our students to read and learn, as well as to educate them about how to learn effectively (Matthew & Sternberg, 2009; Paternoster & Pogarsky, 2009). We have explicitly designed and written the 13th edition of Gateways to Mind and Behavior to foster deeper student engagement with the field of psychology, better memory for what has been read and studied, and a deeper understanding of how to become more reflective learners and thinkers. To help you and your students reach these goals, we have organized our design philosophy around three core principles:

1: Readability and Narrative Emphasis Many introductory psychology students are reluctant readers. Selecting a textbook is half the battle in teaching a successful course. A good text does much of the work of imparting information to your students. This frees class time for your discussion, extra topics, or media presentations. It also leaves students asking for more. When a book overwhelms students or cools their interest, teaching and learning suffer. If students won’t read the textbook, they can’t very well be reflective about what they have read. That’s why we’ve worked hard to make this a clear, readable, and engaging text. Gateways to Mind and Behavior is designed to give students a clear grasp of major concepts without burying them in details. At the same time, it offers a broad overview that reflects psychology’s rich heritage of ideas. We think students will find this book informative and intellectually stimulating. Because we want students to read this book with genuine interest and enthusiasm, not merely as an obligation, we have made a special effort to weave narrative threads through every chapter. Everyone loves a good story, and the story of psychology is among the most compelling to be told. Throughout Gateways to Mind and Behavior, we have used intriguing anecdotes and examples to propel reading and sustain interest. Practical Applications To make psychology even more inviting to students, we have emphasized the many ways that psychology relates to practical problems in daily life. For example, a major feature of this book is the Psychology in Action sections found at the end of each chapter. These high-interest discussions bridge the gap between theory and practical applications. We believe it is fair for students to ask, “Does this mean anything to me? Can I use it? Why should I learn it if I can’t?” The Psychology in Action sections show students how to solve practical problems and manage their own behavior. This allows them to see the benefits of adopting new ideas, and it breathes life into psychology’s concepts.
2: Integrated Support for Active Learning Studying, rather than reading, a textbook requires the active engagement that psychologist Donald Norman (1993) calls reflective cognition. Being reflective when you read a textbook involves asking yourself if you understand what you are reading, how it might relate to things you already know, what new questions your reading might trigger, and so on. The resulting elaboration of the just-read new information is, perhaps, the best way to foster understanding and form lasting memories (Anderson, 2010a; Gadzella, 1995; Goldstein, 2011). Gateways to Mind and Behavior was the first college text with an SQ4R active-learning format. Over the years, Dennis Coon’s pioneering books have made learning psychology a rewarding experience for more than 2 million students. With their feedback, and generous help from many professors, we have continued to refine the unique features of Gateways to Mind and Behavior. In keeping with this tradition of pedagogical innovation, we have redesigned this edition of Gateways to Mind and Behavior to encourage students to become more reflective, active learners. To achieve this important pedagogical goal, the traditional SQ4R method has been updated to reflective SQ4R, an active-learning format, to make studying psychology an even more rewarding experience. As students explore concepts, they are encouraged to think critically about ideas and relate them to their own experiences. Notice how the steps of the reflective SQ4R method — survey, question, read, recite, reflect, and review — are incorporated into the chapter design: