David N. Sattler (College of Charleston) and Virginia Shabatay (Palomar College) Second Edition Houghton Mifflin Company 2000 An instructor's manual accompanies this text.

Brief Contents

1    Physiological Bases of Behavior
2    Sensation and Perception
3    Consciousness
4    Learning
5    Memory
6    Thought and Language
7    Human Development
8    Mental Abilities
9    Motivation and Emotion
10  Personality
11  Psychological Disorders and Treatment
12  Health, Stress, and Coping
13  Social Thought and Social Behavior

FROM THE PREFACE

Teaching introductory psychology is an inherently intellectual and emotional enterprise. As professors, we are faced with the challenges of not only presenting theory and research clearly, but also conveying to students our own personal involvement and excitement about the field. We want to show how what we study in classroom relates to the world outside–in short, bring research and theory to life. Coupled with these challenges are other issues central to excellent teaching: (a) encouraging students to think critically by asking them to reflect on and analyze difficult issues; and (b) exposing students to the complexities of life events, ethical dilemmas, and cross-cultural problems. We suspect that learning is most rewarding when students have clear and vivid examples that relate theory and research findings to personal and interpersonal experiences. We designed this book to help instructors create a dynamic learning environment that shows students the vitality and complexity of the field of psychology.

Our goals for Psychology in Context: Voices and Perspectives are the following:

• To promote students’ understanding and retention of key psychological concepts and issues.

• To bring theory and research alive through dynamic and insightful first-person accounts and narratives that illustrate psychological concepts and raise important and timely issues.

• To promote active learning by challenging students to consider, think critically about, and discuss the readings as they relate to fundamental psychological principles and concepts.

• To stimulate critical thinking about gender, multicultural, ethical, theoretical, and research issues.

• To expose students to the complexities of the field of psychology and ethical dilemmas.

Pedagogical Features

We designed this book to be used alone or in conjunction with any introductory psychology textbook. We organized the chapters, and the concepts within each chapter, to correspond with the organization of most introductory psychology textbooks. The psychological concepts that the readings illustrate, and the organization of the text, were chosen after carefully reviewing more than twenty-five of the current best-selling introduction to psychology textbooks and consulting with over 20 instructors who teach the course. In addition, many selections highlight multicultural, gender, and ethical issues.

An introduction to each chapter, and an introduction to each article, orients the reader and introduces the psychological concepts and issues. Before each article introduction, we present a concept guide, in bold type, that lists the concepts, issues, or topics that the reading illustrates. Each chapter contains between four and seven narratives written by popular and scholarly authors.

After each article, we present a series of questions designed to promote critical thinking and highlight research issues.

• Response and Analysis questions ask students to analyze and reflect on the concepts and issues presented in the article. These questions help students learn about the psychological concepts and issues in more detail.
• Personal Experience and Application questions ask students to explore their own reactions to and experiences with the issues, and to consider how the issues may affect the community (e.g., propose an intervention program, make recommendations to a local school board).
• Research questions provide a solid foundation for learning methodology at an introductory level and also promote critical thinking. After a brief discussion of a research study, students are asked questions about how they might design the study, develop hypotheses, or interpret the results. They also cover basic methodological concepts, such as identifying and measuring variables, controlling for extraneous variables, and applying ethical research principles. The questions show students that (a) methodology and statistics are important for all areas of psychology; and (b) psychologists studying diverse areas of behavior rely on a common set of scientific methods. Previous experience suggests that students will find these research questions interesting, in part, because they involve issues raised in the readings.

New for the Second Edition

This edition represents a comprehensive revision of the text. We have included 15 new readings and thoroughly reworked the text. We also reedited several articles. Two sources of feedback guided this revision. First, several instructors contacted us and offered excellent suggestions. Second, Houghton Mifflin surveyed almost twenty instructors who have adopted the text. These instructors gave excellent commentary and good direction concerning which selections to retain or replace. They also offered good insight on improving the pedagogy.

A Final Note: Extending the Borders

In his remarkable book, An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sacks tells us that he is best able to understand both his patients and their illnesses when he gets out of his office and into their lives, making "house calls at the far borders of human experience." In this way he comes to know them and their conditions from within, as persons, and not merely as patients who have been handed a diagnosis. We believe that students, too, will better understand the issues in psychology if they can extend the borders of the theoretical into the world of human experience. We hope that this book will help them do so.

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