Psychology, 10th Edition

Book Preface

Throughout its 10 editions, my unwavering vision for Psychology has been to merge rigorous science with a broad human perspective that engages both mind and heart. I aim to offer a state-of-the-art introduction to psychological science that speaks to students’ needs and interests. I aspire to help students understand and appreciate the wonders of their everyday lives. And I seek to convey the inquisitive spirit with which psychologists do psychology.

I am genuinely enthusiastic about psychology and its applicability to our lives. Psychological science has the potential to expand our minds and enlarge our hearts. By studying and applying its tools, ideas, and insights, we can supplement our intuition with critical thinking, restrain our judgmentalism with compassion, and replace our illusions with understanding. By the time you complete this guided tour of psychology, you will also, I hope, have a deeper understanding of our moods and memories, about the reach of our unconscious, about how we flourish and struggle, about how we perceive our physical and social worlds, and about how our biology and culture in turn shape us. (See Tables 1 and 2, next page.) Welcome aboard!

Believing with Thoreau that “anything living is easily and naturally expressed in popular language,” I seek to communicate psychology’s scholarship with crisp narrative and vivid storytelling. “A writer’s job,” says my friend Mary Pipher, “is to tell stories that connect readers to all the people on Earth, to show these people as the complicated human beings they really are, with histories, families, emotions, and legitimate needs.” Writing as a solo author, I hope to tell psychology’s story in a way that is warmly personal as well as rigorously scientific. I love to reflect on connections between psychology and other realms, such as literature, philosophy, history, sports, religion, politics, and popular culture. And I love to provoke thought, to play with words, and to laugh. For his pioneering 1891 Principles of Psychology, William James sought “humor and pathos.” And so do I.